Out of the Dark
by the-small-print-UTT2
Summary: 'No matter how far you run, you can never leave your shadow behind'. Linked OC short stories from the Untold Tales of Tolkien 2 NWN server. Something of a gap-filler in visiting underused canon settings and cultures - Umbar, Dol Amroth, Dor-en-Ernil and deep Mirkwood. Cover image is an original character painting by me, all rights reserved.
1. Merren's tale, part 1

Rain clattered down through the leaves in great, heavy drops and spattered onto the tired shingle roof, already sodden with years of weather and moss. Merren squinted up at it in consternation as he hobbled up the path, which was quickly becoming a muddy torrent. The bundle of haphazard sticks and split logs jangled dully and thumped against the heavy plank door as he stepped inside and kicked his feet against the rushes laid down by the doorway.

The sweet, earthy smell of vegetable broth hung heavily in the warm, muggy air and he smacked his lips appreciatively together, dropping his bundle next to the fire-pit in a jumble, and wiping his nose on the sleeve of his tunic.

The fading leaden twilight from outside was shunted away as the door closed, and with a clucking noise like an irritated hen, Mara set about sorting the mess of firewood into neat piles.

"I've told you more'n once, husband. It's not safe to be out at even'; shadows aren't as empty as they ought these days. You dry off that axe afore it goes rusted, and yourself afore you catch your death o' cold," she said, finishing with a severe look.

Merren grinned at her toothily and scratched the greying hairs on his chin, then reached down and picked up the muddy-handled axe from the rushes.

"What's for supping, love? Broth? Ar, I could do with some and all..."

He took off his sodden tunic and used it to wipe the mud from the axe blade, steam rising gently from his wiry back. The pot clanked as Mara's ladle briskly stirred the contents, and the orange embers of the fire hushed and whispered softly, casting a soft red glow about the old woman's set features.

Merren chewed his lip ponderously and examined her face with the eyes of memory. She had never been beautiful in the way of elves or the lasses of the plains, but there was still a care and determination about her, a solid decency and a good head on her shoulders, and out here that was worth much more.

A pity now, to see how fragile she seemed - it was death for a mother to lose her children, and only testament to her strength that she was still going. Gods knew it had been hard, so very hard. But they were still here and they were still alive and warm together, and by Merren's reckoning, that was something to be proud of.

Mara's sharp eyes caught his, and something of his thoughts must have been showing on his face, for she paused, and then gave him a brief, stolid smile before handing him a steaming bowl of broth and some bread, crumbling a few lumps of goat's cheese on top.

They ate in silence and then simply sat, watching one another as the firelight faded to the faintest trace of a muddy brown glow; the drumming of the rain outside became a faint patter, and then stopped.

Finally, with a heavy sigh, they moved over to the bed and clambered inside, and within five hundred heartbeats, Mara's breath had become a rumbling snore.

Visions drifted across Merren's eyes bizarrely; glimpses of sunlight from a past age, shreds of forgotten laughter echoed brightly up from the depths of his memory - the raised voices of two boys, tussling in the trees at the edge of the clearing, laughing and shouting, their feet thudding on the ground and the old forest creaking in the breeze -

With a wash of cold panic across his chest and a little jerk, Merren was awake, blinking his eyes furiously to clear the gum of sleep from them. The creak had been real. A thread of impossibly bright silver moonlight cut the darkness by his bedside, and there was the faintest of splashes by the door.

His heart hammering dangerously, Merren lay stiff as a rod, waiting for another sound to tell him where the intruder was.

There - the slide of one wooden bowl against another, in the far corner.

As quickly as he could, Merren leapt from the bed, aiming for where he had left the axe by his bundled tunic, but the bedskins came off with him and his feet tangled, throwing him to the ground. There was a clatter and a shriek from behind him as Mara sat bolt upright in bed, clutching her chest.

His veins burning with urgency, Merren writhed and struggled to loose himself from the skins, and was free. Ignoring the ominous crack from his protesting hip, he darted for the axe and after a moment's fumbling it was in his hand, trailing a tunic over its head. He turned into the blind darkness and yanked the tunic away, bearing the blunted old blade, and staring about into the shadows to find the intruder's shape.

There was a crash as a basket was kicked over and a sack dropped to the ground. Its contents tumbled out, and there it was, a black, gangly shape; a darker blur in the sharp shadows cast by the moon. With a yell, Merren swung his axe directly at it, but it jerked sharply aside and the blade turned, striking with a hollow 'thump' and glancing out of his hand. There was a grunt of expelled breath and the thing rammed into him and knocked him over backwards, but with less force than he had been expecting.

Mara gave another shriek and a candle-stand flew through the air and bounced off the doorstep where moments later, the swarthy figure stood silhouetted against the moonlight, slumping slightly against the doorframe and panting.

Scrabbling around behind his back, Merren found a thick stick of firewood and closed his hand about it. With a jerk and an inarticulate yell he leapt toward the figure and swung the wood. It lunged away from him out towards the clearing, but the branch connected with its shoulder and the thing sprawled forwards into the mud of the path, tried feebly to pull itself up and collapsed again. Its long, straggly black hair trailed in the dirt.

His eyes wide and jowls shaking, Merren raised his arm to strike again, but a hand caught his wrist and Mara's voice hissed "Merren, no!"

He glanced from her to the figure on the ground, his mouth flapping in bewilderment whilst his stunned mind raced to catch up.

And then it came to him; a slow wave of realisation. The weakly struggling form was not a goblin; it was human. As the moonlight caught her, he would make out a tallish, dark-haired girl, her body thin with hunger and her limbs shaking weakly as she tried again to get up. He dumbly lowered the stick and let it fall.

"Gods."

Mara had rushed forwards, her night-dress trailing in the mud as she stooped to turn the girl over and look at her face. Merren padded forward in a daze, stopping on the other side of her.

The moonlight caught the girl's pale, muddied face and he could see her madly rolling, unfocused eyes and sweat-beaded forehead. She blinked fiercely and tried to get up, her head lolling slightly, but she slipped again and fell back to earth.

"Adhnizish _adhûn_! Azlat! _Azlat_! Get - get off me!"

Mara recoiled as if she had been burnt, and a shadow passed over her face. Something about the ugly words the girl had just uttered seemed to chill the air and make the shadows deeper. She backed away, and the girl struggled feebly to stand, though her limbs were shaking and there was blood on her lip. Quivering, she staggered backwards a step, blinking at the old couple as if trying to find clear sight and failing. A drunken hand fumbled at her belt and drew a knife. Its blade bobbed and weaved like a silvery fish in the darkness as she struggled to hold it steady, and then...

She collapsed. Her limbs gave way and she fell in a crumpled heap upon the path before slumping onto her side, unconscious.

"Gods...," breathed Mara.

There was a long moment of tentative indecision as their breath slowed and the chill in the air subsided. Finally, Mara's features set.

"Come, there's some sickness upon her, or some blight o' hunger. Help get the poor wretch inside."

They shared a glance, each thinking with the other, but neither speaking their mind.

Between them they picked up the limp form and carried her inside onto the table, scattering wrapped cheeses and oatbreads onto the floor. Her skin under Merren's fingers burned to the touch. As Mara set about lighting candles from the fire's embers and wiping the mud from the girl's brow, it became obvious that a terrible fever had gripped her, and it did not take long to find the source of it.

A soiled bandage was wrapped about her left forearm, and underneath was a dreadful wound; a palm's breadth of skin had been crudely cut away, and what was underneath was inflamed and jagged, and sent a foul smell into the air.

"Ye Gods," Merren muttered under his breath. "How w's she still standing wi' a wound like to that? Must be a poison an' fury in her blood by the look of things. She's needing a healer, or a rite-sayer if uncommon luck isn't with 'er."

Mara was frowning at the wound, and holding the girl's wrist with an unconscious tenderness that Merren had not seen from her in many years.

"Can't find a healer, 'less we were to wander north and yell for an elf, but there's no likeness they'd come for us, even if'n we find them, much less for one who speaks her tongue," she finished darkly.

They both stared at the girl's face. The shadow of death lay over her and hollowed her eyes, yet there was still a cold, high beauty about her - pale, shapely features turned in troubled sleep and shaded by the want of nourishment and care. Her breath was heavy and there was blood upon her lip; Merren supposed that his axe must have hit her chest and gave silent thanks to whichever spirits were listening that his neglect of the blade and his panic had let the blow fall so lightly. Nevertheless, a wash of hot guilt crept up his back and spread to his brow.

Whichever way he turned it, and whichever black tongue she spoke, here was a child, or little more, hurt and hungry. As such there was only one choice.

"Aye, no elves. Journeying that path these days i'nt a good notion if you're wanting to come back upon it, elves or no." He chewed his lip for a moment. "We'll see what we kin do for her 'ere. If'n she dies, so be the will o' the gods, if not, then we kin see if her heart's as black as her tongue."

Mara's knuckles were white. There was a yawning finality in the air, and Merren knew that their chances of living beyond this were slim. To see another child fade from sickness would cast a pall over both of them that would not be easy to survive, and if she were nursed back to health? Well, they were both old, and even in the grip of fever, the girl had moved like a snake. What were the chances that anyone who spoke a tongue so foul would have a good heart?

No matter. Fate was not to be played with or ignored, and better to be murdered in their beds and know her heart was black than to let her die and never be sure. 


	2. Merren's tale, part 2

The visions washing across her mind became calmer; throat-rending screams, crushing futility and the terror of pursuit gave way to the quiet moments; when she had simply sat and listened to the boom and wash of the tide, watched lizards skitter over the dunes, bathed her feet in that sparkling woodland stream, or lay back and watched the clouds. The hiss of a sick mind grew less in her ears.

Coolness washed over her face and there was a great weight lifted from her. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, she felt she was close to surfacing and coming fully awake. But her body was still weak.

Her eyelids fluttered as she tried to push them apart, and she gave a deep sigh. Faceless, timeless dreams faded, and lucidity returned in little washes of sensation - the smell of leafmold and wet wood, birds twittered, her left arm tingled and stung fiercely but it no longer held that ache that made the back of her throat tight and her stomach churn. There was a red glow of sunlight pressing through her eyelids, and she tried again to open them.

It was difficult. The flare of sun seemed to needle into her painfully and she could not focus. She gave up and closed her eyes. It was still too bright, so she turned her head to the right into the shade and became aware of another acute pain. The memory of a heavy stick catching the crook between her neck and her shoulder set her wondering... what had happened?

Someone had hit her... a man, and it had been dark, everything blurred. Then what?

Nearby there was the flap of canvas in the wind and something creaked overhead.

A mast! A ship! No! They'd caught her!

A surge of deepest terror and panic jetted through her veins and she jerked wildly, trying to regain control of her body all at once. She tumbled from a high table and it turned over, her left arm flailed to break her fall and knocked a stack of wooden plates and bowls tumbling to the floor so they came clattering down on top of her along with a tangled mess of skins and padding from the table. She struggled to get up, finding new and agonising pains in every part of her body, but particularly in her arm, and her chest felt as though a hammer had struck it. The world swayed and she tried to hold her balance, grabbing out for a wall or a table until she became used to the roll of the waves...

It took a moment for her to realise that there were no waves, and that the sway and swell were of her own imbalance. There was no salt-water smell and the birds she could hear were not gulls. So where was she?

She hung onto the upright beam of a corner and willed her eyes to focus, blinking fiercely and listening to the blood rush past her ears. She stood there for a long moment until the thumping of her heart in her bruised chest subsided a little, and the nausea stopped pressing at her throat, then raised an arm to wipe her eyes and take better stock of her surroundings.

She was in a largish room; a peasant's hovel made from logs cut and stacked atop one another to make rude but effective walls. Herbs hung drying from the rafters above and an ashen fire pit smoked idly a spear's length from the plank door. The door was open.

She gathered herself and pushed away from the pillar she had been leaning on, staggering toward the light with single-minded determination, willing herself to remain upright and gathering a little strength with each hesitant step. A searing light of bright gold blossomed at her from all directions as she stepped outside, making her stop and blink. She was in a clearing amongst a ring of tall and ancient beech trees, resplendent in the fiery reds and golds of early autumn. Frost lingered under the shadows and the long grass in the open took the sunlight and gathered it in a thousand crystalline drops, hanging pendant from the fading green blades where the day's warmth had made the hoarfrost liquid.

The girl blinked and looked around blearily, searching for signs of life. The clearing was empty but for a few strutting hens and wood piled in rings, though from maybe two spear-casts deeper into the wood across the clearing came the 'tock' and clatter of wood being split on a block. Hearing this, she turned and hobbled away in the opposite direction, making for the nearest cluster of trees. As soon as their shadow enclosed her she felt the cold bite, making her bare legs sting and the sweat-sodden back of her tunic cling to her and sap the heat from her body. Frozen beech-mast stuck into the soles of her feet until they steadily grew numb, and thorny brambles dragged at her shins and caught in her tunic.

Hours passed, and as the shadows grew deeper about her she became more and more afraid. She had set out by instinct; she had stayed alive for the past three years by not allowing herself to doubt or question – she was only safe when she was alone, she had to keep moving, to lay traps down and double back, take the harder path over the obvious one, find food as it came, for ever marked and owned.

That accursed mark on her forearm, _staring_ up at her! A simple form; a running horse set upon the waves of the sea, encircled by a double line. In the long dark nights it had grown in her mind, made her skin itch with disgust. In her dreams it had screamed out in _his_ voice, shone like a beacon in the darkness, willing her to be found. Then, her hunters would all turn and see her in the dark, and their faces became the faces of the others; grim, accusing, mournful and full of malice. Boys and girls who had all died upon the burning cross because of what she had done, because she had wanted so sorely to be free. Those dreams always ended in such panicked horror that with no-one to talk to and no friendly face to reassure her, their nightmarish promise would spill over into the waking world, until she could feel the brand staring at her even by the light of day, hear her dead master's voice laughing at her, just beyond the edge of surety. It had become too much, and so she had resigned herself to death, but on her own terms. She had bitten down upon a stick of wood and cut the brand from her arm, then thrown the bloodied, limp scrap of her that belonged to the past deep into a hole in the rocks. And then she ran, and ran and ran until she collapsed, then got up and wandered on in a fevered twilight world until death would catch up with her.

But now that the brand and the fever had gone it was harder to keep her mind free of doubt. For the first time that she could remember, there was hope, and the possibility that she might live to be free and unhunted, and for the first time she realised just how sorely she desired that. The further she trudged on, the more it seemed to her that she was going in the wrong direction. Someone had found her weak and dying, and yet they had not killed her and had not chained her. They had left the door open and tied new bandages on her arm. It made no sense, but she could not find alternative for it; they had wanted her to live, and had saved her from the fever.

With a jolt she stopped, stubbing a numb toe on a gnarled root, and stood hanging with a moment's tentative indecision. Her certainty that to turn back would be to walk into a trap waned, to be replaced by a pressing need to get away from these oppressive, dark trees. A new threat seemed to loom before her, dark and tangible as a cloying mist, and she turned sharply around and began skittering briskly through the leaves in the direction from which she had come.

The deep quiet of the wood was unnerving, and every rustle and crack made her jump. Her tracks became harder and harder to follow as the darkness closed about her, and the sense of threat behind her mounted more and more until she could almost feel the tingle of breath on the back of her neck.

She felt a panic creeping up on her, a boiling mess of emotion so humbling that she knew she would not be able to repress it and it would make a child of her. A whimper clutched at her throat and she jerkily lengthened her stride, glancing back over her shoulder as her breath quickened uncontrollably and tears began to prickle at her eyes, blurring the fading twilight. She stopped with a jolt then, her heart hammering. She had lost her way. A seething wave of panicked rage and shame at her own idiocy crawled over her skin and took hold of her. She cast about wildly around, looking for traces of where she had been, but all was a faded grey blur.

There was a rustle and a sigh close behind, and all sense left her. With a judder of utmost guttural panic she pelted away from the sound, screaming and wailing as if death itself were hounding her heels.

"Merren! Oh Merren, come quick! She's gone!"

There was no need to ask who had gone. There was only one 'she', indeed only one person of either sex who could evoke such worry in Mara's voice these days; the ragged, dark-haired nameless girl they had found trying to steal food from them two turns of the moon ago.

Gawping for a moment, Merren shouldered his axe and loped after his wife towards their house, his joints creaking like trees in a high wind.

She had not woken in all the time she had lain upon her makeshift bed in their house, only tossed and turned and sweated and lost weight, only sometimes managing to keep down the porridge Mara fed her through her delirium. She had muttered and moaned, sometimes screamed, but never was she in a state of true wakefulness.

It had been bizarre and disturbing to sleep in the room with her there and yet not there. Her voice sometimes sounded in the depths of the night when there was no light at all to stay the horror of it; a harsh, breathy rasp uttering cursed syllables that made Merren's bones freeze as he heard them:

"Ashi – ashi athad… ned gutlurz… batuluk"

On those occasions he would look across to Mara and make out only the glint of her eyes, staring straight ahead to the ceiling, clearly, like Merren, wishing that the girl would stop, but fearing what would happen when she did.

It was not always so, though. Sometimes she would simply sound like any other, uttering no noises that made coherent words, but the simple moans of one in the throes of fever, and sometimes… Just for a fleeting moment, her rambling would rise and she would sound like a child, sweet-voiced, uttering tongues Merren did not know, but whose syllables were as light and pleasant as the sway of leaves and the bubble of water over stones in a stream; lyrical and beautiful, and completely at odds with the demonic rasping of the darkest nights. And when this mood took her, her whole body would change, seeming more alive, her furrowed brow would slacken and she would seem to grow younger before his eyes.

Merren had felt this he knew this person, even though he had never looked her in the eyes, but now something of the fear and panic in Mara's voice found him. It was all well when she was asleep and feverish, but if she was gone, awake, which voice would be hiding behind her eyes? He panted and frowned around at the shadows, half expecting to see the glint of a knife and hear the rasp of that foul tongue.

Mara was standing just inside the doorway to their home, clutching her apron to her mouth and staring across to where the table lay, knocked aside and in disarray. The skins and furs that the girl had slept on for so long lay piled and reeking upon the ground, and she was gone. Merren panted and stared for a long moment, his mind feeling sluggish and with no notion of what, if anything, should be done.

"She's up," he said, dumbly.

"Aye, she's up Merren, and gone, out alone into woods, no one to help her…"

Merren paused for a long moment and swallowed. He rubbed his brow with the back of his arm.

"May be that it's for the best. We don't know her nature, nor what she'd do if'n she seen us. She'll be right, one way or the other…."

"Be right? Be right, you old fool?" Mara fumed, "Isn't you using your eyes at all? She's taken no skins and no clothes and no food – it's all still here. So she's not thinkin' straight an' she's not prepared, not taken no knife nor no kindling neither, I'll wager. You know as well as I what lurks out in them trees, so don't you go giving me 'She'll be right'. I've not been keeping, feeding and changing her all this time like a baby for her to go out and freeze to death or get herself et, no matter what colour her tongue may be!"

Merren frowned, unhappy at being berated so, but feeling that his wife was speaking aright.

"Aye… aye. Yer words are true, love. Gather me some foods and fetch my cloak, I'll see what the land can tell me."

Mara shook her head in exasperation before hurriedly gathering together what he would need, and Merren hobbled outside, his knees still feeling the effort of his earlier run. He squinted down at the grass, and panned about for signs and tracks in it. His vision was not as good as it once had been, but it took him moments to find the bare footprints in the mud by the door, and a darker trail where the grass had been bent over and the dew knocked off by shuffling feet. The path led away to the east, into the deepest of the woods. Merren frowned darkly.

Mara bustled out and gave him a hamper to tie to his back containing all that he would need for the search, his axe and his cloak. They shared a brief glance, which carried a dozen unsaid messages, before Mara patted him firmly on the chest and said, "You find her, you hear me?".

Merren gave her a short nod and turned his back on her, following the darkened stripe of grass into the woods, then picking up the trail in the dragged-aside brambles with broken thorns.

As he walked, Merren could not help but let his mind wander, to dream about where this errand might lead, for better and for worse. He pictured himself as saviour, and as victim; the girl as daughter and as killer. Pictures formed in his head, telling the tales of each future: one where he would find the girl and take her by the hand, leading her back to safety and she would learn his tongue and call him father; and another where the last thing he would feel in this world would be the clammy grip of a hand on his chin and scrape of a blunt knife across his throat as an unseen murderess sprung from the shadows and took him unawares, dedicating his blood to some foul god.

He shivered and chided himself for allowing his mind to fantasise about such things when to do so made it all the less likely he would find her at all.

The trail was becoming harder and harder to follow; The trees began to loom overhead; taller and darker, and more devoid of life. It had been a thousand paces since anything moved – the jewel-blue flash as a jay took off by the path – and on this bare, dry forest floor the marks left by wandering feet were becoming harder and harder to find.

Sometimes, when he was a younger man, Merren would walk into the deep woods by himself, simply to enjoy the feeling of awe that such immensity of life would bring to him. But he had not been this deep in many years; not since he had been narrowly missed by a party of orcs ten years past.

The woods here were so quiet that it felt irreverent to make the slightest noise. It was like standing in the presence of a patient, watching giant who would wait in perfect stillness for a thousand years before shifting his weight or sighing, and only then would you realise that he was there at all. But the silence was ever expectant, and the woods were certainly not dead; better to say that they were alive, but on such a grander scale than the life of a man or a bird or a blade of grass that it was impossible to see from so close. The air seemed thick; the closing darkness seemed to make a grainy smoke in the air that could not be stirred. The occasional chirrup or tweet of a bird settling down to roost seemed far away, way up in the canopy, two dozen heights of men above him, and muffled.

A distance away something scuffled in the centuries-dried leaves and was silent.

'It's a matter of taming your mind,' thought Merren as he squinted ahead at the faint traces of footprints ahead of him. 'Either you can let your mind fall to fear, and every hair on your neck will tingle and the very air will seem tight in your lungs, or you can take the woods for your own, and feel like the trees are your fathers.'

It worked - as such girding words of wisdom are wont to - in his mind, yet even the moment he had finished the thought, a shudder ran down his back and it was achingly difficult not to let his head jerk sharply around and look over his shoulder for chasing shadows. He rubbed his arms for warmth and frowned. A slightly sick feeling was mounting in his throat. It was getting too dark to see, and he knew if he did not turn back right now, then he would become lost and have to wait for the light of day, lest he lose the path.

The silence was so thick now, it felt like he was being stared at intensely by someone just a little too far away to see in the falling darkness.

A yawn of inadequacy struck at his stomach as he imagined telling Mara that the girl had been lost in the woods and would never be found again; imagined her bones lying in a sad little pile at the base of a tree, picked clean by the scuttling things of the wood. He saw her empty eye sockets staring off into the untrodden depths of time, and slowly being covered over by millennia of softly falling leaves until there was nothing left, no trace of her but in the mind of a pair of long-forgotten woodsfolk. He shuddered, and tried hard to keep the prickling from his eyes.

At that precise moment, he heard a sound that made him jump out of his skin; a scream - so long, drawn out and terrible that it shook him to the core of his being. It came from two hundred paces or so further into the woods, further than he could see, and it echoed long between the trees, making birds burst clattering from their roosts above and furry things scurry away or pelt up the trunks of their trees.

There was such depth of sorrow, such fear and frustration, and such terrible, crushing sadness in that cry that Merren choked in fear and sympathy and could not breathe. It was the single most chilling and pitiful sound that he had ever heard.

He gasped and tried to gather his wits as the scream sounded again, shorter and lower, and it began to resolve itself into long, weary sobs that grabbed Merren by the heart and drew him hastily on towards the source of the sound. He stopped twenty paces away, where he could just make out the huddled shape of a girl, curled up on her knees and crying. Her long black hair trailed in the slowly rotting leaves and she shook with cold and grief.

After standing dumbfounded for a long, helpless moment, Merren let out a quiet cough, meaning to announce his presence. The girl's head jerked up with frightening quickness and for a moment her face took on features of such startled ferocity that Merren jumped back. Her hands scrabbled at her belt, at where her knife would have been had she thought to retrieve it, but when they found nothing, after a momentary look of disbelief, her face folded again into a look of shaky, resigned sadness, and she covered it with a hand, returning to her now silent reverie.

Merren's jaw flapped as he tried to think what to do. Heat crept up his face as the moments passed and he still could not bring himself to move, and a mounting sense of impotence crept over him. He wanted so badly to help, but he had no idea how. Eventually, after perhaps a hundred heartbeats – it was hard to measure, since his was hammering away so fast – he slowly paced forwards making the sort of soft, cooing noises one might to a nervous horse that could still kick out. To his immense surprise she did not react at all, just sat hunched over, silently shaking and covering her face with both hands, breathing heavily and sniffing.

He tentatively reached out and carefully took her shoulders in his hands, expecting her at any moment to explode upwards and thrash him to death. To his surprise she did not; she simply shuddered a little when he touched her. It was surprising just how small she seemed close to, when on the night she had first raided the house she had seemed taller than he in his advanced age. Her shoulders were soft and warm to the touch, made of the same stuff as any youth's. He inwardly laughed in relief and self-mockery, realising that he had been half-expecting them to be made of marble, or some hard, demonic scale.

Continuing his run of meaningless soothing syllables he gently lifted her to her feet and began to lead her back towards the point where he had left her tracks to come and find her. She was not crying now, but staring down at her feet mutely, her eyes glassy, apparently all too happy to be led and comforted by another. Merren guessed that this had not happened to her in a very, very long time.

The darkness closed about them and Merren began to settle down into the pace of walking, ever aware of this delicate new charge he was bringing with him. It was astounding how different she seemed now that she was awake, and Merren startled himself by realising that though he had seen and felt he had known her for two turnings of the moon, he must seem a stranger to her.

After a few thousand paces the girl stopped, taking him somewhat by surprise and bringing him up short in his musings. She hugged her arms and shrugged off his hands, then simply stood watching him expectantly. Merren was quite nonplussed by this sudden change of mood, and felt again like a fish out of water, unsure of what to do. He moved a little forward along the path and made encouraging gestures to her, but she did not react. She only rubbed her arms and shivered a little. Merren stopped and pulled his well-made but well-worn black cloak off over his head and held it out to her. She made no move to take it.

"Are you cold?" he offered, longing to go back to the simplicity of just leading her along. "Come, take it… no? You looks cold to me."

Merren frowned, unsure whether she understood a word he was saying.

The girl looked at him with the air of a sulky toddler, though it was clear that this demeanour was simply a temporary indulgence and she would regain a more wary stance soon. She pursed her lips for a moment, as if trying to remember the shape of a word.

"Where – where you take?" she asked slowly. Her accent was not one Merren had heard before, and was utterly unplaceable. Any folk who spoke Westron might have had a dialect like it, and perhaps it was only her clumsy use of the words that made it sound odd at all.

Merren hesitated, realising how nervous he was. He briefly scolded himself, feeling he should be showing a little more resilience and resolve. Some small part of him also longed to appear strong and sure in order to impress, though he did not admit it to himself.

"I – back to the house. Where you run off from 's mornin'," He said, beginning already to sound more gruff and manly. "Come on now," he added shortly, tossing the cloak meaningfully towards her before turning and striding back along his way.

The girl scowled at his back. It was an odd sensation she was feeling, and she couldn't immediately identify it. She shivered, then reluctantly bent to pick up the cloak, and followed.

And as the crunch and skitter of their feet faded into the falling darkness, not every shadow remained still.


	3. Chapter 3 - Flight

Running...

Air tore at her lungs, and twigs whipped across her face as she dashed through them, unseeing in the shadows. Somewhere behind, she could hear them snickering and snarling as they followed her.

* * *

Night had truly fallen, and Merren caught a great rush of relief as he finally spied the lights in the distance. He had been doubting whether he would see them at all, but the darkness wrapped about them as they passed along, and it seemed full of malice. The thought of stopping and waiting for the light felt like madness. As it was, he had not dared raise his voice to ask the girl any questions in the hours they had been walking. It might have been the shadows, or it might have been the memory of her moaning in the fevered nights, but Merren had begun again to grow afraid of the girl who followed but a few paces behind.

She was too quiet, and not only because she did not speak. Merren had good ears, especially for so old a man, but her feet seemed barely to whisper among the leafmould. As he looked to the path ahead, trying sorely not to turn from the heading he had fixed in his memory while the twilight lasted, he only knew that she was there at all by an odd sniff, and the tingling of the hairs on the back of his neck. He found himself stamping his own feet harder, almost as if he was trying to make enough noise to cover her silence, but he soon stopped. There was an evil feel in the air tonight.

Their pace picked up as the light glimmered in the distance. There was a little wind now, stirring the scrub as the deep forests thinned. Still no light of star or moon, but the sighing of the boughs gave Merren heart: almost permission to make more noise and speed his step. The chickens were quiet: hidden in their coop, and the goats stared madly out from the shelter of their shed as the two of them – Merren looked about – yes, the two of them, passed into the clearing. Frosted grass crunched under his feet and the lantern above the door swung gently in the icy breeze.

* * *

A root tripped her, but she managed to keep her feet, crashing through a holly bush and ignoring the needles scratching across her skin. A jeer sounded from behind, closer then it had been. Damn it, did they not tire?

* * *

"Merren! Oh bless you, I was that worried. Did you find 'er?" Mara leapt up from beside the firepit, her face white with worry.

"Aye love, I did that. Merren looked back over his shoulder, but the girl had not followed him inside the hut. He went again to the door and squinted into the darkness. She was standing by the lean-to shed, staring at the goats.

"You comin', love?"

She did not look up. Cautiously, Merren walked out again into the chill gloom, feeling the cold prickle at his face. Mara followed him, hanging upon his arm.

"You coming?" he repeated, softly.

The girl jerked, as if surprised to see him there. She glanced at the two sharply, then back at he goats. They were silent, but restless and alert, and they were not looking at her. Slowly, the girl turned about, staring hard at the edges of the clearing with a furrowed brow. Long moments passed, and nothing happened.

Mara stepped forward, a gentle coo in her voice.

"Come along now, love. Come inside. I've food and bedding all laid out for ye. Come out of the cold."

The girl rolled her shoulders to shake off Mara's hands as she tried to lead her away, but followed, mutely, still looking hard at the bounds of the clearing.

* * *

Too long... her breath was a saw that tasted of blood, and her legs shook and stumbled. The fever had taken much from her, and she was flagging, but panic drove her on. She would not be caught this easily.

* * *

She ate in silence, wolfing down the stew and bread, and taking a second bowl from Mara without so much as a glance of thanks, ever pausing to look at the door, and stopping to listen. It was unnerving. Neither Merren nor Mara spoke.

After a time, the girl seemed finished, and looked at the two of them for a long moment, frowning. He looked worried. Not angry or hostile, but...

She opened her mouth, ready to shape some word or other, but after a moment of silence she closed it again without a word, and moved to the makeshift bed Mara had laid out, pulling the furs from it as she went, and then huddling in the far corner, she wrapped herself in the bedding.

Glancing at one another, Merren and Mara sighed and nodded once. She had not thanked them, but her expressions spoke more of confusion and worry than rudeness. This was a puzzle, but both of them were tired and would think better in the morning. Perhaps the sun would bring some answers from the East.

* * *

The forest floor rose up and struck her in the face. Blood filled her mouth and dizzness shook at her mind. She rolled over, grappling for the knife, but it was too late: the creatures were almost on top of her.

* * *

As the fire glissed and clicked itself into a warm, dark silence, Merren began to drift off, with the gentle snores of Mara and the quiet breath of the girl lulling him into a deep slumber. Shapes began to drift, and dreams to form again; a dizzying comfort overtook his uneasiness and senseless, meaningless thoughts held his mind.

CRACK.

He sat bolt upright in bed, heart pounding. Hard white moonlight streamed in through the door, which swung upon its hinges. Light, running footsteps hushed away through the frosted grass outside, and the knives on the rack jangled. One was missing.

Merren turned to shake Mara, but she was already roused, looking blearily towards the door. As he looked at her, her eyes widened in horror, and his head jerked about.

There was a shadow in the doorway. Not a stray child this time, but a bandy-legged, evil silhouette. The embers of the fire, hushed into new life by the cold air glinted a cruel red light from its fangs as it leered at them.

* * *

"Latz!", she howled. "Latz snaga!"

The orc stopped dumb, looking now uncertain where only malicious glee had held sway before. Breathing hard, she spoke again, holding the knife before her.

"Asharach! Ungol throku-char!"

The orc gaped, dumbly opening its mouth in puzzlement. Another – smaller, blacker and more evil looking slunk up behind it.

"What's this, snaga? Why haven't you stuck it through? Kept it for me to play with, did you?"

The first orc looked about in confusion.

"It speaks Lugburtz-tongue! It is not one of them..."

The girl's eye were wide. More orcs had loped up out of the shadows and stopped to listen. She had never seen orcs before now. She did not know what to do.

The second orc squinted at her evilly.

"Not one of them, eh? Maybe, maybe... Not one of ours, either. No spy would have run off like that. No spy would look so deliciously scared..."

"Asharach!" yelled the girl again, trying to keep the fear from her cry.

The orc leered wickedly.

"Even if it is, there's no one to help it here."

Her eyes widened and she began to back away again, as the orcs began to laugh cruel, harsh jeers and close in. One of them gurgled and fell flat on its face.

"Aiiiiieee! AMBUSH!"

Two more of the orcs fell flat upon the ground as green-fletched arrows darted out of the black forest into their throats and eyes. The rest howled and scattered, and the girl did not wait to see what would happen next. Before the cry had reached its pitch, she was away, running upon a wind of terror, and not for a moment looking back.


	4. Chapter 4 - One year later

The milky white sky turned steadily grey, then sunk through a murky blue to black, and not once did the rain slow its hammering pace. The rivers ran brown and burst their banks; the mossy rocks seemed to swell with this unexpected glut of precipitation, and the trees dripped great spattering drops down onto the dark, hunched figure who had been sitting below them since mid-day.

Fear - it was always there, boiling just below the surface of her skin and threatening to burst out, but tonight she was having such trouble controlling it that she could barely think. There were a dozen choices open to her, so it was as much to her own surprise as it might have been to anyone else's that she chose to take the most reckless path. She felt exposed as she stood and began walking down the middle of this mud-sink of a road, and the fear it stirred in her churned over and over in her stomach, and bringing a sting of nausea to the back of her throat.

Every bone in her body screamed at her to turn around and hide as she approached the gate, splashing through the deep, cold, muddy puddles that wallowed in the wheel-ruts of a hundred carts. She was quivering by the time she reached the great oaken thing, her hands making involuntary jerks at her sides, but it was as though she were being led by a puppeteer, for she did not hesitate to raise her fist and hammer upon the gate for attention. This was the first time she had actively sought to be seen by anyone in nearly a year, and it took a great effort of will not to leap back as the eye-door swung open and a stubbly, uninterested face appeared at the grate and peered through at her.

"Oh aye, what might you be wanting, miss? 're you lost?"

She had to think for a moment to translate his words in her mind, and then for another to find her response back into Common. What did she want? This was stupid.

"Let me in."

The guard frowned at her. She shivered and shook with such a mess of frantic urges that she did not know what to do with herself, and it was all she could do to remain standing on the spot.

The guard watched as she glanced over her shoulder fretfully.

"It's my job to ask yer business, Miss. If you can't furnish me with an answer I can't let you in."

Her agitation mounted, and she hit the gate with her hand, without any real reason.

"Let me in! I want – wanting – stay in inn. Let me in!"

"Easy now, young 'un! All roight, all roight, I'll let you in. Hold a moment…"

The guard reached for the bolt. He was utterly nonplussed and had no idea what to make of the strange young woman outside his gate. She was tallish and dark-haired, dressed all in tattered black cloth and an ill-fitting leather jerkin; pretty, but with the look of one of the rangers who stalked the hills about. That would explain her strangeness, if not her odd use of the tongue, but perhaps some of the Rangers came from further south. It was not worth his while to interfere with their affairs and he supposed it would be easier to let this stranger in than to try to keep her out. After all, what harm could she do? Clearly soaked through and shivering with cold, and something else. He slid back the bolt and opened the gate, and no sooner had he done so than the girl darted through under his arm and strode quickly down the street away from him, not even glancing back.

The feeling of sickness rose in her throat, and she swallowed hard. Feather-like tingling shivers ran up and down her spine and her head pounded. There was such a strong feeling inside her that she was about to die that she was near-delirious with fear. And yet this feeling had been with her for days, ever since she had seen _them_ watching her in the wilds.

She could not suppress a whimper of panic as she thought of it; there was no way, surely no way in the world that the hunters could have followed her here, so far away. It was nearly three years - _three years_ - since she had seen the last of them, around a hidden campfire in that far green land in the shadow of the cursed mountains. But as surely as the sun rose each morning, she had seen them in the hills near this rainy little village, so far from anywhere she knew that it might be on the edge of the world.

Three times - hooded and cloaked figures, watching her. Close enough to see the grey of their eyes and their pale skin. Each time a different one, and each time she had not seen them until it was nearly too late to run. But they never chased. They were playing with her… the wilds were not safe.

There were people everywhere here, between the mud-splattered white-daub and timber houses, riding carts through, their horses steaming and snorting in the wet, cold night. It felt so unnatural to walk between them, in plain sight; so wrong that the sickness of it nearly caught her. But that would only draw attention, and she needed to fit in. Travellers – they stayed in inns. She knew that. She had some gold and there must be an inn here somewhere, for all these merchants to stop in. Somewhere obvious or it would have no trade - there!

It had a board hanging from above the door with a white shape painted upon it, but it was too dark to make out its form. There was no carved stone here, no whores plying their trade and no black-skinned warriors guarding the door with their wicked glaives, but it had the feel of an inn all the same. She splashed up to the entranceway and tried to ignore the hissing in her mind as she stopped at the door to control her breathing.

Something touched her arm and she sprang sideways, her face aghast and her heart leaping out of her chest in shock, spinning in midair to face whatever it was.

"Beg pardon miss, I only meant to get past,"

A shocked-looking peasant stared at her for a moment, then tugged his forelock to her and pushed open the door to the inn, muttering "Evenin'".

Her breath returned, in great, punctuated gasps as she sought frantically to calm herself. She would have to go inside. Against all her instincts, it would be safer to sleep somewhere there were other people. She steeled herself and pushed open the door.

A warm mug of air caught her as she walked in, kicking her feet on the rushes and trying to look inconspicuous. The soft, yellow light of two-dozen oil lanterns lit the place, and there was a fire burning merrily in the hearth. The air was alive with loud chatter and laughter, and the strains of a pair of fiddlers playing a lively tune. Glancing in the fiddlers' direction, her mouth dropped open in wonder and horror. There were four of the shortest men she had ever seen; two playing whilst the others clanked their tankards and sang along. They did not look like cripples though – all of their arms and legs were straight, just hideously short, like pudgy children. Their deformities did not seem to be drawing attention, though. Perhaps they were well known in the village and - more surprisingly - tolerated; even allowed to buy ale.

She shook her head to clear it. This did not concern her. She needed the Inn-Master so she could take a room for herself. She made for the bar, where the portly Master was gabbing with some customers, but then she stopped dead in her tracks. By the bar were sitting two of the men she had seen in the wilds, leaning in close to one another with their hoods raised.

Panic gripped the girl's veins like iron bracers and the sound in her ears was squeezed tight and muted. She could not make herself move, think, or breathe. The men were turned away from her, examining something, and they had not seen her. With a barely controlled gasp she managed to unfreeze herself and began to urgently push her way toward the door, shaking in purest terror. But then she stopped and the hold of her fear tightened again, though a moment ago she would not have thought that possible; two more men had just come in by that entrance – hooded, cloaked and dressed exactly alike to the two hunters behind her. She was trapped and it would only be the blink of an eye before they saw her, and then it would be over.

Without the beginning of a thought, she darted aside to a small table lit by a single candle and yanked up her hood in one short, fluid movement. She put out the candle without wetting her fingers, and received a sting that she barely felt in return.

She dug herself back into the corner, half-turned away from the bar, her ears tingling. She could not see them now – there were too many people milling about and standing in the way – but every time someone moved, she flinched, expecting the four grim-faced men to shoulder through and trap her at any moment. It was like being beaten with a rod, but with taunting blows that never landed. She nearly swallowed her tongue trying to stifle the sobs of maddening panic that were threatening to give her away.

One hundred…. two hundred… five hundred…. a thousand heartbeats, and nothing had changed. Her fast breathing was making her dizzy and her scalp was tingling, but she could do little to tame it.

Still no sight – no voices other than the somnambulent, vowelly rumblings and laughter of the locals. No black tongue and no King's tongue, but then –

It crept up on her like the sun spreading through the leaves of a wood, waking her from a deep, nightmarish sleep – a light, gentle sound, languidly lapping at the edge of her oldest, deepest memories. Gods, what was it? Her heart skipped and jittered, her fear now tinged with some longing so strong that it seemed to physically pull at her stomach, aching with the sadness and comfort of it; a beautiful melancholy.

She panned around, entranced and confused, but still mortally afraid. She focused hard, and the sound resolved itself into several voices: none clear, but unmistakably fair….

There! She caught the mouth that was forming the enchanting words, in a gap left where one of the patrons had left his stool and moved to the bar. There sat a man – slender but powerfully built, whose raised hood did not wholly hide features that might have been chiselled out of marble by the finest sculptor in all the lands. He was simply garbed, but the lamp on the table lit his face, and his brown hair flowed down over his shoulders. He bore a sheathed long sword of fine proportion and a slender, simple bow of yew was propped unstrung behind him against the tavern wall.

As if feeling the girl's eyes upon him, he looked up in surprise and interest, and as surely as she knew that water was wet and the sun bright, she knew that she must ask for his help or die, if from nothing else than from the too-fast beating of her terrified heart. She formed her face into a desperate, silent plea and willed him wholeheartedly to hear it.

The man frowned, and a moment later he was lost behind a passing farmer's son, and then he was gone – only a blank patch of wall, flickering softly in the lamplight.

The lump in her throat might have choked her, had the man not emerged a moment later right by her table, tilting his head to show that she should follow. Her strained heart gave another skip and she rose as quickly and silently as she could, not daring to look around for her hunters, though with every pace towards the door after her mysterious guide, the skin of her back tried to creep around to the front of her to hide. She burst silently out of the door into the dark street and darted across it, following the grey shadow ahead. She was a thousand paces away before she stopped, realising that she had lost the shadow and was following nothing.

"Who are you?"

The voice sounded away to her left, and she spun around to face it. The fair-faced man was standing beneath a birch tree on the edge of the green, scratching his stubble and watching her interestedly, with a hint of suspicion in his gaze.

"I.. I am – "

Her mouth began to form the first "V" but at once she knew it was a lie. _He_ had called her that, but it wasn't her name.

"I am - need help. You help me! Please!"

"You have not answered my question," said the man, frowning.

It was hard to think in any tongue but the Black she had learnt and was easiest with, but she knew somehow that she would feel horribly ashamed to speak it here, before this man. She stuttered for a moment, forming words in tongues that did not fit together.

"I – please! You not know what they do to me! They find me! They follow me! Four year and still they follow me!"

She was breathing fast now, clutching at his robes, with tears running down her face.

The man was clearly moved by her distress. He held both of her hands as they tightened on the front of his tunic and spoke slowly and calmly to her:

"Be calm. Tell me – who hunts you? Who has found you?"

This was too much – she didn't even know words to express whom her pursuers were any more than she knew her true name.

"Men! Narû dubdam! Orch had Andûninae hed manôi nûlu! Izil orch Kor Kharabazra, y Tarik, y Isenna; orch enni hadh an Umbar!"

She could not stop it; a torrent of the King's tongue sprang from her. It was the only language whose words expressed properly the malignant threat of the men who hunted her. The man was staring at her in shock and disbelief.

"Umbar?"

"Yes! Yes! Umbar! Men from Umbar!"

The man frowned deeply, and stared starkly at the girl for a long, unnerving moment. And then, with a tone of reluctance and suspicion, he spoke.

"Very well, I will help you. Are you armed?"

She swallowed and shook, nodding furiously and gabbing at the handle of the knife at her belt.

"Give me your weapon," he said coolly, holding out his hand.

She girl stared at him in disbelief.

"I – what? No!" she called, backing away uncertainly.

"Come, I have no reason to trust you. If I know you are not armed, then I will be content. Only then will I help you."

A sweep of cold washed over her chest as she hesitated, her gaze not wavering from the man's shadowed face; cool, calm and solid. Giving up her knife would be like agreeing to have her feet tied, and her heart thumped suspicion against her ribs, but this man held so different a feel to those men that she knew that she could not judge him. There was something in his poise and manner that made him seem… And that tongue. The words he had been speaking, sure no evil man could speak a language so fair.

She looked away. There was something in the glint of his shadowed that made her feel small and foolish; a poor, silly girl playing games, having nightmares where none were necessary. No man had made her feel that before. There had been frightening gazes, wicked, hateful ones, mad stares, lustful, arrogant or deadly. But they had not made her feel small - simply afraid, or full of furious hate, or both. But these eyes - they reminded her powerfully of someone she could not remember.

She drew her knife and shakingly held it out to him, promising herself that she would break her own neck if he turned on her. He took it with a slight, approving nod and tucked it away inside his cloak quickly.

"Good. You are in no danger from me, unless you choose to betray me, but I have seen enough of the world to know the fear in your eyes is real. Come, if you are being hunted, then we will leave at once."

He turned and strode away into the shadows, and the girl was left wringing her cloak, a look of desperate indecision on her face.

Ahead might be a short future, but it held a sorely beautiful hint - of a past so far buried she could barely find the shape of it in her fraught mind. A delicate chance. But behind was certainty, worse by far. There was only one choice to make.

She made it.


	5. Chapter 5 - The vale

The nightmare broke, and a few bare moments later it was gone, lost into an unhappy oblivion. The ground was soft: too soft. She wondered in the haze of half-sense that comes from heavy sleep, whether it was the ground at all, or if she had died and lay upon a cloud. A fresh, silken breeze brushed across her skin like the breath of spring, carrying with it the scent of trees and flowers and water. Songbirds belled and twittered about, and branches sighed softly in the wind. Shapes of memories danced without substance before her closed eyes, and somewhere, a name flickered out of sight, like the silver flash of a fish spied in a murky river.

Slowly, she rolled over. Her eyes had never felt so heavy, and she could not remember sleeping so well. Dappled sunlight played across her eyelids, making the world a red haze. As her senses sluggishly returned, she realised that something was wrong. The ground _was_ too soft, and she was not clothed. There were sheets about her, but they were not rough linen or sackcoth. The air felt open and there was no musty smell of inns, nor the murmur of a village or sounds of camp.

Opening her eyes did not help much, so heavy were they with sleep: she could see nothing but a bright haze, and slowly she sat up, rubbing her eyes and blinking until the world began to take shape about her. She sat in a soft bower of a bed under a round shingle roof, whose pegged tiles glowed gold in the reflected morning sunlight. Ringed about were low wooden walls, open above with a view down a stepped and broad green valley with high cliffs about. With a jump she realised that she was not upon the ground: broad, ancient branches held the little nest and one side was shadowed in a green light of fluttering spring leaves. Steps led down towards the tree, where a broad wooden platform made two layered rings about the main trunks, bounded with a simple rail

She was worried now, and deeply puzzled. Standing groggily, she kicked off the sheet tangled about her leg and stepped down onto the floorboards about the bed. Something felt odd: her feet were bare, and she was dressed only in a light nightgown. She didn't own anything like this... wha- ?

Oh yes, Imladris. She had come here last night. It meant... split valley. Had someone told her that?

She frowned, but her heart had begun to slow: it was difficult to remain afraid here. Moving to the low walls, she looked over the edge. There was no one in sight, though some open, elegant buildings were perched below, between green lawns and waterfalls spanned by slender bridges on the great rocky shelves of the upper part of the valley. Far below them stretched great green gardens and woods, part hidden by a soft mist veiling the valley floor.

Looking about, she saw that someone had left a silver basin and mirror on a small table against the wall that looked down the valley, and next to it was a folded dress of unadorned black and grey silks. Kneeling by the basin, she slipped off her nightdress and washed. The water was cold but clear, and she began fully to wake up.

Splashing water in her face, she looked up and gasped. For a flicker of a moment, the face in the mirror had seemed painfully familiar. It had been four years since she had last looked in a mirror up close, and she barely recognised herself. The shapes of her face had changed. She was no longer a child. Less pale now: more gaunt and just as hunted, but why was her heart beating so fast?

She stared at the mirror in worry, but she could only see herself. Nothing...

For long moments she stared, mesmerised and longing for she knew not what. After a time, the furrowed brow and taut frown began to soften, and there it was again – a stab of painful melancholy. Looking back at her was... almost, yes, almost – a face she could not have seen for fifteen years. A little younger, maybe, and her eyes were a darker grey, but there, looking back at her in surprise was her mother's face. She stared, until her eyes were too full of tears to see, and then she wept silently: not making a sound but breathing hard. Her mother! But she had never remembered her mother, no matter how hard she had tried! Desperately, she tried to remember something else: a name, her father, but there was nothing there. Only Umbar, and the twisted world she had escaped.

After a long while, she washed her face again and dressed herself, turning the mirror upwards so she could no longer see her reflection. There were no shoes, but that did not seem to matter. Quietly, she padded towards the little flight of steps down to the flet, and found there a table laden with food and drink. She sat and ate, trying to keep her mind empty of any thoughts. It was simple fare, but tasted clearer somehow and more real than any food she could remember.

Movement caught her eye: someone was coming. Instinct took hold and she found herself running for the cover of the branches and reaching to her belt for a knife that was not there. Pausing, she straightened up. She was supposed to be safe here. Frowning hard, she made herself walk to the rails and look over. The ground was several heights of men below and she felt a little dizzy. Across the green meadow below a woman walked, seeming almost to glide. Her hair was dark, and her face light and fair. A leaf-green dress flowed about her bare feet as she came closer, looking up with startlingly green eyes.

"Nai ledhamo nin?"

"No! Go away!"

The response had been instinctive and angry, and the woman simply gave a slight nod and turned about on her path, heading back towards a stand of tall silver birch trees.

The girl felt something almost grip at her throat. Why had she said that? She did not want to be alone. This was all too strange! She screwed up her face and covered it with her hands as desperate frustration coursed through her.

How had she known what the woman had said? She did not recognise the tongue, but she had known that she was asking permission to climb up into the flet. Urgently, she looked after her, but she had almost passed out of sight into the stand of trees. The girl turned and hurried back to the trunk, sitting on the lip of the hole through which the rope ladder fell, then climbing down. Grass tickled at her feet and flowers and herbs let their fragrance into the air as she stepped upon them, hurrying after the woman into the trees. A narrow path led through them, passing between tussocks of grass in dappled sunlight, and a few moments later it opened out onto a pond or small lake with thick reeds about it. There, at the base of a birch tree, sat the woman, reading an old tome.

The girl stopped and bunched her hands hesitantly, trying to find something to say. The woman simply looked up in feint surprise and smiled. It was not a broad smile, but it was somehow arresting. There was no insincerity in it, and no measure of mere nicety; it was a pure and clear expression of the feeling behind it: the woman was pleased to see her. The girl stood uncertainly, thrown off balance by the gesture and not knowing what to do next. The woman looked back down at her book and tucked her hair behind an ear. The girl sat down slowly, her eyes still on the woman. That ear was not a normal shape. Instead, it rose in a short point like a beech leaf.

_Oh... so this is an elf. _

She had expected to see elves last night, but Sadronaraw - the man who had brought her here - had insisted that she be drugged asleep lest she learn the secret ways. They had spoken of elves in Umbar, variously with hatred and violence, or with lust and obscenity. They had made them out to be feeble and weak, foolish and hopeless, but this woman did not seem to be any of those things. She was both tall and graceful; giving a clear impression of softly veiled power and strength. It was deeply reassuring, though it was frightening as well. A different kind of fear, though: more the fear of seeming less in comparison, or of saying the wrong thing and causing anger or insult.

For a long time, she simply sat and watched the elf-maid reading, but in time, she looked up again.

"Come, the Master of this valley wishes to meet you. He bade me bring you to him at noon."

Catching the expression on the girl's face, she added:

"Do not fear his title. He will not try to rule over you, only to learn of you. Indeed, he may see more than you see yourself, if you wish to know of it."

Hesitantly, she decided that she did.

So, rising, they went together across the valley, passing over the slender bridges and through the wide lawns until they came to a great and ancient hall. Passing inside, they were greeted by other elves, and a tiny old man, barely taller than Aewen's waist, who bowed to them, dropping a number of scrolls to the ground, before hastily picking them up with an embarrassed chuckle and shuffling away. Then, the elf led the girl through a pair of high-arched doors into a room filled with the music of harps. There are the far end sat an elf upon a velvet lounge. Regal he seemed, and intimidating, and the girl dared not look into his eyes, but the elf-maid bowed before him and then they sat.

Wine was brought forth and set upon the board and there, hesitant and faltering, the girl began to tell her tale.


	6. Chapter 6 - Caged bird

Rich, golden sunlight streamed in through the high arched window onto the floorboards of the tiny room, filling it with warmth and lighting four sleeping figures in a heavenly glow. Their bunks were set one above the other in two little alcoves cut into a stone wall that was coated in chipped plaster.

One of the figures scrunched up her face against the light and rolled over with a sleepy groan, then stopped and rolled back the sheets, swinging her legs over to settle her feet on the golden-glowing boards of the floor.

She sat, eyes mostly closed and blinking, for a few long moments, a frown upon her face. Aside from her dishevelled look, she was a handsome girl, on the verge of becoming a woman but not yet there. She was tallish and a little gangly, having reached a height, but not yet filled out. Her face was pale and shapely, and as she wiped her eyes and opened them fully, they showed themselves to hold all the colours of a stormy sky, from the deepest coal-black, to a misty dove's-feather grey, twinkling in the golden glow of morning.

She breathed deeply a few times and then stood. She was clad in a baggy white nightshirt, and at her left forearm, a dark stain sat upon her marble skin; a mark in the shape of a running horse upon waves, encircled by a doubled line. It was set in black ink, with a red shadow, and had been done neatly with a chisel, so that the lines were indented and permanent. The girl absent-mindedly scratched at it with a look of irked distaste upon her face.

She stood quietly for a moment, looking at her fellows. She liked it when they were asleep – she could almost imagine that they liked her. Each of them was roughly the same age as her, but none of them as fine-featured. Two were brown-haired and freckled, the third a pale blonde, of shorter stature and with a round, friendly face that was twisted into a look of sad discomfort.

She padded quietly over to the washbasin, and began to wash and dress herself in the plain black and red she was always to wear.

Behind her, the other girls began to stir, and each of them in turn rose, except for the blonde girl, who continued to toss and turn, as she had every morning for the last week. Each of the others gave her a wordless glance of worry, before washing and dressing herself.

"She's getting thinner; she needs more food,"

"She needs a physician."

"Useful, Ashara," sneered one of the brown-haired girls. "You know Kor won't spend anything on her. She's not as important as _you_."

"Choke on your tongue, Inzil. You know I can not make him do anything," replied the black-haired girl tiredly, wearing an irate frown.

"No? I've seen what he feeds you: cheese and olives, watered wine, bread and meat. Fruit, even. Just what she needs, in short."

"What more do you think I should do? I can't take food from the table; it would be right under his nose. He is not blind."

"Why not? I'll bet you're just too scared. _I _would."

"No you wouldn't. Maybe I should though. It'd be _you _he'd have flogged,"

Inzil narrowed her eyes, and the girl whom she had named Ashara looked away. She could feel in her chest that she had gone too far, speaking the truth that was the cause of all of her loneliness, but she could not withdraw it. After several long, silent moments, a bell rang, and she felt a flush of irate foreboding and frustration.

Stupid Inzil. Why did she have to ruin the morning? It was the only time of the day that she had any quiet at all. Now she had to face her daily humiliation and those precious moments were spoiled. She knew why in truth; it was Alfhanna's worsening fever – it had them all worried, because Inzil had been right; Kor would not spend good money on a physician for her, and she was losing weight rapidly.

She stepped out of the warm sunlight and into the cold shadow of the corridor, then paced quickly down it into the kitchen. Weaving between the dozen servants who were slicing and boiling breakfast for the household, she wrapped a rag around her hand and unhooked the little steaming brass pot from over the brazier, then carried it with her from the kitchen, down through the great stone-carved hallway and up the stairs to Kor's morning room, swapping the water pot from hand to hand each time it began to burn her.

She stood demurely outside the carved doors and knocked, dragging her face into an expression of flat subservience. The door opened sharply and a pale, pointed face looked down at her with a look of practiced disgust.

"Oh, furies," said the woman in a tone of brisk disapproval. "I don't know why you let this one near you; it's such a sly little rat"

The girl curtsied, feeling her hand begin to blister under the rag, but controlling her expression and fighting a momentary urge to throw the pot into her mistress' face.

"Stop dithering, woman, and let her in."

Vesp curtsied again and stepped past Kora Isenna into the dark, grand room. Despite the morning sunlight, this room always seemed dark and cold; a place of black wood and white light, hot water and cold air. She hated it vehemently, but not nearly as much as she hated the man who summoned her to it each morning. He stood before her now; lounging against the back of a wooden chaise lounge, which was sumptuously draped in silks and cushions. He wore his usual self-satisfied, predatory smirk as he eyed her up and down, his gaze lingering on her developing breasts unashamedly.

No one else could evoke such a turbid mess of emotions in her. At the same moment she was repulsed and disgusted by the man and horribly afraid of him, yet he was the only source of power for her – it was his fancy that she be set apart. That was both the curse of her life, and the reason she was rarely beaten or punished for her wrongdoings. She was even allowed sometimes to tend his horses, a task that offered her the only real escape and relief she could expect.

"Good morning, Vesp," he said, his leer widening.

Vesp curtsied once more and bowed her head demurely.

"Good morning, Kor Karabazra."

"Well, what are you waiting for? Go away! I'll send for you if I want you here!"

Vesp flinched and looked up sharply, before realising that he was not speaking to her. She did not dare turn her head to look at Isenna; she was a vindictive, vicious woman, and needed very little provocation to seek revenge.

There was a brief in-drawing of breath, a pause, and then footsteps leaving the room as the door closed, hard.

Vesp's hand was truly burning now, and she tried to stop her arm from quivering. Something of her pain must have been showing on her face, for Karabazra raised an eyebrow.

"Something the matter, Vesp?"

"The pot, Kor, it's burning my hand," she replied, trying to keep her voice level.

"Really?" he asked, apparently amused. "Well then. You should set it down, shouldn't you?"

Vesp stepped quickly to the small shaving table and set down the pot upon its mat, dropping the rag and trying to subtly flex her fingers.

"Come here. Let me see," Karabazra ordered paternally, his face affecting a businesslike concern, and Vesp felt her heart sink, but she obediently stepped towards him and held out her hand. He took it in both of his own, gently caressing the reddened skin of her palm and fingers, whilst she fought the urge to jerk away from him and step back.

"Silly little swan – why didn't you put it down?"

"Kor… Kor said that I may do nothing without his bidding. I thought he would be angry."

Karabazra laughed jovially, still holding Vesp's hand whilst she looked past him to the floor.

"Do nothing without my bidding? Did I say that? Well, yes, I suppose I did. Good girl for remembering, this time."

Vesp felt his grip tighten on her wrist a little, and the sense of foreboding mounted inside her chest.

"If only you could remember that all the time, life would be so much easier," he said, in something like a throwaway tone.

Silence...

"Kor?"

"You've been stealing from the supplies again, haven't you?"

Vesp made the mistake of glancing at his face, so taken aback was she.

"No, Kor, I – "

Her voice was cut off as his hand whipped up and slapped her sharply across the face, making her gasp and flinch. It was not hard enough to bruise, but reflex tears had sprung to her eyes, and she tried furiously to blink them away, before he noticed.

It was too late for that, though; the smirk he quickly hid beneath a guise of paternal disappointment was evidence enough. Her cheek throbbed hotly, and her face felt misshapen, as though it were too big for her head.

"Ah, my little swan, I had hoped you knew better than to lie to me."

Karabazra sighed dramatically and set the palm of his free hand against her cheek, squeezing painfully on her wrist with the other. Vesp could not contain a shudder of disgust as the rough, damp skin of his hand enclosed her jaw and his thumb set just a little too much pressure beneath her eye. Her stomach burned with fear and utmost loathing, and his dull grey eyes told her that he knew it, and was enjoying his sport.

After a long, dreadful moment, he drew back and handed her the folded razor, his grin hinting a subtle threat.

"Anyway, to the task at hand, before the water goes cold. Make a closer cut this time – I had to finish it myself yesterday."

Her heart began to race, and the lump in her throat built again - as it did every morning - whilst she whetted the razor on the oilstone and prepared for the humiliation of powerlessness.

His face lathered, Kharabazra laid back on the chaise lounge and waited, grinning. Vesp leaned in, ready to begin. A little drop of water sparkled on her master's neck in the morning light, quivering over the pulse of his vein. She slowly lowered the shining blade towards it, her lips tight.

"Oh, and Vesp…. Do try not to cut me, there's a good girl."

He grinned and winked up at her as she swallowed and tried to steady her hand.

The threat was double; she had cut him before, several times, just thin little nicks where he moved or the razor was too blunt, and each time, one of the other children had been given a thrashing that had left him or her bedridden for days. The cruelty of the punishment was as real to Vesp as it had been to the others, for it made them both hate her and fear the power she had over them, and though she longed for their company, they knew that those closest to her were those punished first.

But that was not all. It had been a year past since she and all the slaves of the household were taken to the square, to see what happened to those who were left when a slave killed his master. The girls had returned to their dormitory that night and clung to one another, sobbing and shaking until the early hours, united by their terror and sickness of heart. Each had sworn an oath never to risk such a fate for their fellows, and then they had sealed it in blood. The memory of it caught at Vesp's chest and she had to move the blade away quickly whilst she suppressed the flutter of panic the memory caused.

Determinedly, she tried not to think, but only to concentrate on the task at hand, as the methodical scrape of the razor made a harsh counterpoint to the fruity twittering of the birds outside.

She was determined not to slip this time, even though his command to shave closely had been a challenge. Alfhanna was the only slave brave enough to show kindness to Vesp; nothing overt, but she would recount tales from time to time, simple jewels of memory – of freedom, of the best way to care for horses, of what feelings had been made in her by having a mother and a father. It was a simple kindness that none of the others dared show to her, and as a result, it was she who would take the beating for every mistake and misdemeanour that Vesp was accused of. She was truly brave, though, defiant too – she had told the girls her real name, and in private, she would not answer to the tag Karabazra had given her. He knew, of course. There was very little that happened in his house that he did not know of, but it was too good a threat to squander, and so he did nothing.

"I understand, of course – ouch…"

Vesp pinched her eyes tight to stem the thrill of fury that surged through her, as her master deliberately spoke as she was finishing his jaw, making a thread of blood run down onto his neck, and tutting his disapproval. She hastily picked up a cloth to dab at the wound, trying to steady herself enough to speak without showing the intensity of her anger.

"I am s-sorry Kor, it was an accident…. Please forgive me."

"That's quite alright. I was saying; I understand… why you stole the food."

Vesp bit her lip hard. She could say nothing. He was about to deal a cruel blow, though she did not yet know what it was, and the futility and injustice of the knowledge made a tight lump grow under her chest.

"Times are hard, and you have been looking thin. Three guild ships have been sunk this last moon, all hands and livestock lost to the sea. So I am afraid I cannot share with you my dainties as I would like to…. I am sorry."

The silence seemed to ring. It was apparently her turn to speak.

"That is alright, Kor. I will be well enough without."

He grinned at her, dabbing at his own chin now, a nasty hint of malicious excitement in his face.

"Brave girl! Noble girl! No, it won't do. You are the prize of my crop, and so I shall see you well fed. I'll brook no complaint; I forbid you to refuse it. Do you understand?"

Vesp flushed red, feeling herself cornered, and dreading what was to come next. But there was no choice, of course – there never was.

"Yes, Kor. Thank you, Kor."

Kharabazra smirked triumphantly, mopping the remnants of the blood and soap from his face. He folded up the razor.

"Of course, there is only so much food… I am sure little Karbi can do without for a moon or so. She only shits it straight back out anyway."

"Ah!" Vesp let out a gasp of dread as though she had been hit in the chest, and her eyes began to flood. She dropped to her knees and put her hands together, begging.

"Please, Kor, no! Alfha – I... Karbi! She... she will die, the fever – "

"Get up, you filthy little rat!"

Kharabazra's manner had changed entirely; the façade of gentility dropped, and a cold, cruel anger filled his face as he grabbed her around the neck and lifted her to her feet until only her toes touched the floor, then loomed over her and shouted. Spittle punctuated each syllable of the tirade he flung at her, as she shrunk, cowed away from him, sobbing and terrified.

"Grovelling on the floor like a beggar's brat! Don't you know what blood is in you? How rare and blessed it is to be born with pure blood of the sunken isle? You are not worthy of it! I have tried to teach you, tried to make you worthy of your blood, but the spawn of the feeble-minded remains so! You think to defy me? I am your master! I am your god! I know everything that happens under my roof! You steal out of pity for one of the lesser-races? So she can tell you what it is like to roll in the muck of her homeland? So she will tell you the name given by the flax-haired whore that spawned her, and laugh as she defies me? You disgust me! Thieving from the worthy to give to the worthless – have you no respect for what you are? You are Anadûnê! Do not forget it! Now get out of my sight!"

Vesp gaped at him, her vision blurred, but it took only a moment before she ducked away and ran, wrenching open the door and choking on her grief. She ran near blindly back down the stairs, knocking the tray from a startled boy-slave's hands, then pelting around a corner and through the long, dark corridor back to the dormitory.

It was less than ten days later that Alfhanna's sad, frail body was loaded onto a cart to be dumped in the river, and there was no bitter reprisal that the girl-slaves could give her that stung Vesp more than she could herself. The tight fullness of the food in her belly made her feel sick with guilt as she sat in the window, untouched by the sun's warmth.


	7. Chapter 7 - Sweet Nightmare

It had been a good month, or so she kept hearing. Somehow, Vesp could not bring herself to be happy that a dozen ships full of slaves had returned to port with only a few deaths from sickness, punishment and injury. Though, she could also not bring herself to care when there was news of ships lost, except of course that in those months, Kor Karabazra would be doubly cruel and spiteful.

She felt a little stab of guilt, all the same. Karbi had hated it when the other slaves did not care what had happened to captives. She had not been enslaved long, though. The desolate hopelessness of being branded and owned had never truly sunk in with her. Vesp envied her that, and sometimes she thought she envied her death, too. She had thought about it, many times – just giving up and dying. But there was still something in there, in the back of her mind, like a solid flare of hope. She was waiting for something. She knew she had been, as long as she could remember. She did not know what it was, but something in her was sure that it would come.

She often wished that certainty would go away, though. It would simply be too cruel if there was nothing; if all she had to look forward to was to be given as a gift to the Kor's son so that he could use her to make grey-eyed babies who would grow up to be arrogant and cruel like their father and grandfather.

Vesp peered through the gaps in the stone balustrade, watching as her master loudly showed off the prize of his crop to his wealthy friends in the chamber below. No wonder he was so happy. As well as the normal straggle of workers and servants-to-be, there were three girls there whose blood was plainly Anadûnê: dark hair to their shoulders, grey eyes cast to the floor and lips trembling in fear as they stood naked, being prodded, groped and poked by fat old men looking to keep their lines pure without having to marry their own sisters. Vesp looked away in disgust. She got up and dusted off her dress, scowling, then began to thumb through one of the shelves of books and lore-scrolls for anything that was not about the sunken isle or the slave trade.

Kor had been in magnanimous mood when he had given her the day off from chores, but whenever this happened, she did not know what to do with herself, and when she was not doing, it meant she was thinking. She rarely had anything pleasant to think about, especially since the other girls envied her idling so bitterly and punished her for it with coldness and hostility. Still, if Kor said she was not to do chores, she would not do them, even if she wanted to. He was not a man it was safe to ignore.

The sounds from below rose and became sharper, and there was a finality in their tone. She looked up from the beautifully illustrated but never-opened book of Haradrim folk tales she had been reading. Footsteps began to sound on the staircase and she quickly turned to hurry away, but she was too late.

"Vesp! Dear girl!," came Kor's voice expansively from the gallery behind.

She stopped, turned, and bobbed a curtsey.

"Kor."

He was swaggering. The sale must have gone well. Oh yes, Tarka the boy-slave was carrying three fat coinpurses, each almost as big as his head. Muscles stood out on his skinny arms like worms in a stocking as he held the bags up.

"Enjoying your day off, little swan?"

A waft of wine, garlic and feint halitosis drifted across to her.

"Yes, Kor," she lied, keeping her eyes down.

"Haha," he barked. "I spoil you! But I must say I have an eye for good stock! Tarik will be pleased when he returns from the South!"

His eyes passed over her body in a way that made her skin crawl.

"Hmph," he snorted. "Almost a pity I told him about you. He'd be so upset if I unwrapped his present early. You'd better run along where I can't see you, now. Go see to the horses or something!"

Vesp rapidly bobbed a curtsey and left as quickly as she could without running. Kor had been giving her that look more and more lately, and each time he did, it made her feel sick to her stomach with fear and revulsion. His promise to his son was the only thing keeping her out of his way, but she did not wish to try the limits of his self restraint.

Shuddering, she rounded the corner and began to run for the stables. In his distraction, or perhaps his good mood he had given her one thing that she did cherish: time with the horses.

She pushed open the door to the stables, and the fug of hay, leather and horse tickled her nose. The horses whickered gently and shuffled closer to the stall doors as she stepped delicately inside. She smiled. The horses were the only creatures she knew that actually liked her, and she adored them for it. They were all black – as was the fashion among the most expensive households in the city – and all of impeccable line. However, it was not the handsomest or most showy colt or stallion that was her favourite, but an older gelding that Kor called Nûlû - though she hated this name: it meant something like 'nightmare' in the King's tongue.

He was not a nightmare. By the scars on his velvet skin he had lived through several battles. Perhaps that was why she liked him: there was something reassuring about his sturdy muscular shape and soft eyes, and he was never afraid, even when the other horses frighted and reared at loud noises, or if a snake found its way into the stable. He had been there as long as she could remember, but the Kor's brand was burned over the top of one of the scars on his flank, so she knew - or guessed at least - that he had not always been owned by evil men.

She stepped into his stall and fed him a carrot, scratching between his fore-shoulders and making him pull a face. She giggled, then crouched and took up a grooming brush from the floor. Working the dust out of his mane, she began to sing quietly: a foolish children's rhyme.

"Out on the horses, clippety clop,

Out on the horses, trot trot trot,

Up on the mountains, down in the vale..."

"Who's that?!"

Vesp jumped and dropped the brush. A boy's voice. She could normally tell if there was someone else in the stables: the horses would be restless, but they had been calm moments ago...

A frowning face appeared around the stall: a boy of about sixteen with dark brown hair and pale blue eyes. His mouth dropped open when he saw her, and she glared at him for having intruded on a private – and rather embarrassing – moment.

"Who are you?" He repeated again, more softly, furrowing his brow again. His accent was strong and foreign.

Vesp did not answer, but scowled at him.

"Please... that song. Where did you hear it? The words are all wrong, but the tune... my mother used to sing it to me, back... home."

His eyes wandered to her left forearm. She slapped a hand over the brand there and gave him an angry look.

"I know nothing about that," she said. "It is just a song. A stupid song."

She made for the stall door and went to push past him.

"He likes you," the boy said.

Vesp stopped and looked at him.

"What?"

He gave her a feint smile and tilted his head towards the horse.

"Nûlû, he is a good judge. I mean..." he faltered, seeing the expression on her face. "I think he is a war-horse from Gondor, where I am from..."

Vesp felt afraid now. This was dangerous territory.

"Don't talk like that!" she hissed urgently. "If someone is listening, you'll get..."

But her warning was cut short. With the air of someone closing his eyes and hoping for the best, the boy had leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. Vesp recoiled with a gasp and staggered backwards in a daze. Her face was burning. She had to get out...

She turned and ran, bolting through the door almost without breathing. Plaintive cries followed her:

"I -I'm sorry, I didn't mean..."

But she was away. She ran all the way up to the dormitory without stopping, and huddled up in the windowsill, her hand still to her cheek, almost as though she expected some mark of evidence to be glowing there for anyone to see.

Oh, hells... if someone had been watching... Kor had let Karbi die simply for smiling at Vesp, and sometimes sharing stories with her. What would he do if he got wind of that? And he did; he always did...

Most of her mind was consumed with fear and shock. There was a small part, however, that was re-running the moment over and again in her head with something like a stunned joy. It was that part of her noticed that her heart was not _only_ hammering with fear, and that her skin was tingling all over.


	8. Chapter 8 - The end of the beginning

Vesp had not been near the stables in two months. She had heard nothing about what had happened, though that did not mean there was nothing to hear. She had not seen the stableboy since, except at a distance, and even when she sometimes had the chance, she did not go to tend the horses. This was hard for her: there was no-one else in the entire estate who cared a jot for her and she knew it. Only the big, warm, soft-nosed horses and the elusive Gondorian boy gave her anything but envious contempt.

He had told her he was from Gondor... she could not get past that. Speaking a single word about your past was forbidden, and would get you the kind of thrashing that would leave you bedridden for a week. The thought behind that rule was as malicious as her master could make it – those who remembered how they were before would be harder to control now. That was why he liked child slaves - he could shape them; play them in his sick puppet theatre: creating rivalries, isolating weaklings and setting up friendships only to use them as cruel levers of power. Yes, that was his game... he always left you enough comfort and hope so that you would still give him sport. She had no doubt that he took the same approach to the politics of the city, for he was an influential man. If you spent enough time in his house or his company, you became what he wanted you to be, and it was that Vesp was afraid of.

Her time would come soon. Just a week past, she had been taken to see Kor Tarik - the master's son - as he rode back into the city in Triumph, having commanded a force that put down tribal rebellions in the south. She had been made to attend, and to watch as her husband-to-be was bathed in the blood of five times five black rebel captives whose throats were cut upon the shrine to Melkor. He had risen, his sodden black cloaks trailing a gruesome streak across the tiles of the great domed temple, walking in a track of blood the five-pointed star: the shape of _Hi Akallabeth_ – She Who Has Fallen - the Sunken Isle.

Their bodies had then been thrown on the pyre and the acrid smoke rose through the Oculus in the dome above. And this was the man she was to be given to. On midsummer's day she would have to stand next to him in the Forum and be doused in the blood of Gondorian slaves. The very thought of it made her sick to her gut, but that would only be the start of a miserable life with him. Hells, something... oh something had to happen! This could not be real!

She angrily brushed a tear from her cheek and continued wiping the window with the rag. It looked serene outside: colourful birds twittered and sang among the pink blossoms on the cherry trees, which fell scattered upon the worn golden-white tiles of the street. Market vendors peddled their wares under elegant arches that had been built thousands of years before, and still stood proud and strong. It was a beautiful scene, and it took the eye of one who knew what to look for to find the faults: the iron collars about some of the more ragged-looking people in the street, the symbol of Melkor hanging from the neck of a black-robed priest who walked between the trees, and the sign of the red eye scrawled in chicken's blood upon the wall behind the armourer's stand. The city was much like its rulers: beautiful and proud, but cruel and black-hearted at its core.

Someone was coming out of the estate's archway onto the street. Vesp's heart skipped a beat: it was the handsome Gondorian boy, carrying a money chest. He was following after the Master of Horses and flanked by two tall and stern black-skinned far-Haradrim guards with their cruel curved glaives glinting in the sunlight.

He was carrying money – that meant they were going to the market to buy horses! The stables would be empty for a while now... Quickly, she hurried downstairs. She would catch up on the windows later. They were only in the servants' quarters, anyway, and she had only been doing them because Inzil - whose job it was - had not been seen for two days; not because she had been told to.

That was odd, but there had been no hue and cry. They had been worried for a time, but if Inzil had escaped, then there would have been beatings, interrogations and murder until it was found out where she had gone. Vesp could only guess that Kor had found another way to satisfy his lust that did not involve breaking his promise to his son. Somehow, she could not bring herself to care. Inzil had never shown her the barest moment of kindness.

The horses were glad to see her, and she could tell from their whickering and pressing against the stall doors that her long absence from the stables had been noticed. She went along the rows, palming carrots to each of them in turn, including a new yearling filly she had not seen before. She took a little tempting, but Vesp had a way with horses, and she was soon eating from her hand.

Vesp gently let herself into the stall and checked the filly over as it munched on the carrot nervously. The horse had been groomed recently, but Vesp took up the brush anyway: it was as much a way to make the horse relax as it was to clean its coat. At the far end of the stable, the door opened and closed, and Vesp hurried to the stall door. Oh... hells. What was he doing back so soon?

Of course... the filly was new. They had only gone to make payment...

'Vesp!' the boy cried out, and smiled.

Urgently, she reached down to the bolt and tugged at it, trying to loose it and get out, but it was stuck.

The boy walked over and reached to the bolt, brushing her hand by accident, and making her recoil. She stepped back as he unbolted the stall for her and leaned on the door. She scowled at him.

'I'm... sorry, you know. I should not have done that, the last time you were in here...'

'No, you shouldn't! And we should _not_ talk!' she replied sharply.

'Not talk? Why not?' he asked, frowning in puzzlement.

'It is dangerous! We will be seen. You just don't _know_, do you? Why do you want to talk to me anyway?'

'You're not like them. They're all twisted and petty, but you're not, else the horses wouldn't like you. I miss that. And...'

He paused, frowning wistfully at her.

'Well... you look so lonely, it makes me sad.'

It felt like she was winded. There were a dozen things she should have said: warnings, insults, anger. Any of those would have been best, but she was literally stunned. Nothing came out, but her mouth fell open and tears pricked at her eyes. She could not move, so she just stood there, breathing heavily and trying not to fall over.

The boy quickly stepped around the stall and walked over to her. And then his arms were about her. Not hard grappling; just a warm, tender embrace that smelled of sweat, dust and horses. This was too much. She could not stop a quiet sob welling up from the depths of her heart. She buried her face in his shoulder and returned the embrace.

He cooed to her softly, rocking her slightly from side to side.

'There, meleth. You are too good for this place. We both are...'

His accent... it was so familiar, and yet it almost hurt to hear it...

'My name... my real name, it is Aramir. What is yours?' he asked, after long moments of letting her weep.

Vesp sniffed, and after awhile she managed to control herself long enough to look up at his face.

'I... I don't know. I c-can't remember.'

His hand brushed a tear off her cheek, and then she was kissing him. It was as though a well inside her heart that had long been dry was filling with a fresh torrent of cool, clear water. She had not felt anything like this before.

For long moments, there was nothing in her mind, only a quiet, endless bliss.

But poison seeped into the well. She remembered what she was doing, then pulled back and pushed away from him.

'No, Kor will kill you. He will kill you; you have to let me go... Let me go!'

He released her, looking bewildered, but at that moment a terrible cold gripped at Vesp's chest. Tarka the boy-slave's frowning face had just appeared over the stall. He looked between them, taking in Vesp's tear-streaked face, and her hands pushing at Aramir's chest, and the loose hold of his hands on her waist.

Cold horror washed over Vesp and she stared at the little boy. Had he seen...?

'Dress fitter wants you in the east wing, Miss Vesp. Right away.' the boy said, still frowning.

'Tarka, this was... It wasn't... I'd hurt myself and...'

'Dunno what you're talking about, Miss Vesp,' said Tarka, then his skinny little face dropped back out of sight behind the stall door and she heard him walking away.

With a horrified glance at Aramir, Vesp turned and ran out of the stall door to the aqueduct and splashed her face, breathing heavily and trying not to be sick.

Oh no no _no_! How could she have let this happen?

She had to go. Get the dress fitted. Maybe... maybe Tarka would not say anything. She would have to find him and bribe him or threaten him later. Kill him, maybe.

She hurried up to the east wing, trying to keep the nausea from pressing at her throat. There, a sour-faced Kora Isenna poked and jabbed her into position as the dress maker bound her up in corsets and pinned sheets of rich black silk and satin here and there about her as she tried to keep her expression docile and unreadable.

She went to bed that evening and stared at the bunk above her. She had not been able to find Tarka. Her ears twitched at the slightest sound, expecting... what?

But then she knew. Hard footsteps approached and the door burst open. There stood the Kor, flanked by his three enormous Haradrim guards. Vesp sat up in bed, paralysed in fear. Siraha - the other girl slave - sat up and screamed.

"Oh do shut up, girl. Vesp! I need a word with you, my dear!"

He gestured to his guard and one of them stepped forward and gripped her by the hair, dragging her upright out of bed by it as she whimpered and gasped.

"Capital! Come along now!" called the Kor, his tone almost cheerful, except for the hard, venomous undertone of furious anger.

Heart hammering like a woodpecker, Vesp was dragged painfully along the corridor, staggering to keep her feet beneath her as her head was twisted back and up by the guard's grip on her hair. She nearly stumbled down the stairs and they strode down them again and again... two flights, three...

The cellar. No slave went down here.

The other guard went ahead with the Kor as Vesp's guard dragged her behind. Past great vaults of wine and bottles, past mountainous stores of crates and barrels they went, and then through a barred door unlocked by three large keys.

Torches guttered in brackets as they strode inside on their long legs, making her jog and stagger to keep up. There was a weak whimper on the right, and Vesp glanced across in horror to see Inzil, bound, naked and reeking in a corner. The Kor stopped.

'What on earth is she still doing here? By the Eye, get her out of here and watered before she's wasted! Honestly!'

One of the tall guards broke off and approached Inzil, beginning to untie her roughly, but the party moved on. The rounded a corner and there he was: Aramir, stripped to the waist and tied to the wall. He was pale and terrified, though Vesp could not bear to look him in the eyes.

'Well now!' Boomed the Kor briskly. Young Tarka has been telling me some very interesting stories indeed! Why didn't you tell me this rat had been troubling you, Vesp?'

She glanced in panicked terror at the Kor, then at Aramir's pale, gagged face. He looked so scared...

'He...'

'What's that, girl?! Speak up now!' bellowed the Kor.

"He didn't, Kor! I swear! I had hurt my hand.. he came to see I was alright! I swear, I swear!'

'Oh you do!?' he called stridently.

'Y-yes!' she sobbed, hanging her head.

'Why, your hand does not look hurt to me! Was this before or after you hurt your foot I wonder? And here I am made to look a fool, I thought the fault was only his! Check her!'

Vesp choked in awful humiliation as a hand was roughly shoved under the skirt of her nightgown. The guard shook his head.

'Just as well for you, girl! If you'd been spoiled then I'd have no use for you! As it is, you'll see now the price of trying to cuckold my son!'

It took all night. He did to Aramir what she had once seen done to rebel slaves in the Forum square, and by the end of it, it was difficult to tell if the boy had even once been human. Vesp passed beyond horror, beyond sickness and beyond terror. She emerged without a bruise, except where she had been held still to watch, but that did not matter. She could not un-see what she had seen, and not even a necromancer could bring Aramir back from that.


	9. Chapter 9 - Breaking point

Three months passed. The other slaves left her alone now. They did not know for sure what had happened, but rumour had spread, and the ghostly expression Vesp carried on her face was enough for them to know not to bother her. Even Inzil, who had been bearing the merciless brunt of Karabazra's frustrated affections, did not dare to take it out on Vesp.

She rose each morning and demurely went to shave her master and set about her chores. She only went to the stable once, but the horses did not come forward to welcome her as they once had. They did not shy away, but it was as if a formality had fallen between them. Only Nûlû acted as he always had, and for a time she had simply hugged him about the neck, dry eyed and emotionless. She did not dare show the same kind of weakness she had before.

There was still the flame though. Still something, deep inside. It felt more immediate now, as if a whisper heard through a veil of sleep had become a voice: sharper, more present, but still not clear.

It was strange. She looked about the estate now as an outsider, almost as though she was impervious to the ebbs and tides of rivalry and allegiance; the petty politics of the house. She could tell it was frustrating Kor. He had not forgiven her her indiscretion, and his attitude towards her had hardened. What once might have been called grand schemes of manipulation and power by which he controlled her and the other slaves had devolved into surly nastiness and ugly bullying. There was no subtlety any more, but plenty of vindictive cruelty. She took it all without a word or a tear, never protesting innocence or begging for a more lenient punishment as she once had, and she could tell that this rankled most of all.

His eyes passed over her now, as she pushed open the door to his morning room, carrying the little brass pot in her hand.

'Good morning, Vesp!' he called in a bored, theatrical voice.

She curtsied.

'Good morning, Kor'

He looked at her, frowning.

'I'd better stop feeding you. You'll get too fat for your dress, and there is scarce time before your wedding.'

'Yes, Kor,' she replied, mechanically.

'Oh, you think so too, do you?' he replied, pacing about her as if inspecting a rather disappointing new horse. 'No, no, on second thoughts better not. Wouldn't want these to get any smaller, now, would we?'

With that, he grabbed her breast and squeezed hard. It hurt – badly – but she simply set her jaw and waited until he had let go, then straightened her dress.

'No, Kor.'

He continued to circle, a look of dissatisfied malice on his face at her lack of reaction. She could tell she was not giving him his usual sport.

'I will want a grandson, you hear! At least one! If you can't give me that, then I'll have no use for you, you understand?'

'Yes Kor'

He stared at her for a while. He knew the pot was burning her hand, and he was waiting for it to show on her face. It did not.

With an irritable sigh and an inclination of his head he gestured to the shaving chair. It was clear he was not getting what he wanted out of this.

'Shall we?'

'Yes, Kor'

They moved over to the chair, and she poured the water into the basin over the cloth and set it onto his face. She ignored the tight stinging in her left hand from the pot and sharpened the blade, then stropped it and washed it clean.

She did not know Tarik. She knew he was a cold and merciless Commander who delighted in the defeat of his enemies, but she also knew that he spent much of his time on campaign or in the most expensive brothels whoring and drinking. If she could just endure a little longer she would move out of this house, and maybe even be left alone for a time. The flame was still there in her chest, telling her that things would change for the better, and she trusted it. Maybe he would not even be interested in her. Maybe.

Kor was talking. She lathered his face, waiting until he had finished before doing his mouth.

'I have given you much, you know. Always tried to teach you to respect what you are. Anadûnê blood is too rare, and yours is pure. Do you know how precious that makes you?'

There was no tenderness in his voice. He might have been talking about diamonds or spices; things whose worth could be measured in gold.

'Yes, Kor. I am grateful,' she replied, scraping under his ear.

'Hmph,' he grumbled. 'No you're not. You never have been. You know, I even once tried to treat you as if you had some worth past your womb, but you were insufferable; always crying and whining and begging me not to beat the others. Pah!'

'I am sorry, Kor,' she replied. He was trying to worm another wedge into her defences, she could see. To get a reaction; something he could use to bring her back into his 'game'. It was more than that, though. His sullen manner made him seem weaker, somehow, like a sulking youth defending his failures with spite and ill-grace.

He snorted.

'I should have given up earlier. After all I saved you from: a prideless life under false gods serving a doomed and weak old man whose days are numbered. That is what you would have been! And I tried to give you pride; direction; a place in society; power. But no... you preferred snivelling with the other slaves, whose blood was worthless, whining: "Father will come, Father will save us all!"'

The world stopped.

That was it: _that_ was the flame. She knew it almost like a noise that had been going on for so long that she had not perceived it until it fell silent. Kor never allowed you to talk about your past, and after a time, you stopped thinking about it too: there were always more immediate problems for you to worry about, or troughs of self-pity to wallow in. But now, she could feel the truth of it: She had always believed that her father would come for her, even if she had forgotten that this was _what_ she believed. The shape of it had still been there in her heart. She could not remember him: his face, his name, even whether he was alive or dead, but now, suddenly, she could remember promising herself that he was coming.

She had held it like faith passed on from the words and stories of another: someone who so strongly believes in something that you begin to believe it too, even if you cannot recall precisely why. But this other had not been some wise sage; just a scared little girl: she had been afraid and lonely and desperately in need of comfort so she had convinced herself that one day her father would come and kill her captors and take her away. She was different now. It had been many years since that delusional child had last drawn breath, and the one who lived now could not have said for sure if she had ever even had a father. Now that she knew the shape of her one flame of hope, she could see that it was nonsense and that it always had been. Her father, if she had ever known him, had not come in eleven years. He was not coming now. Not ever.

And with that desolate gust of cold realisation, the flame was extinguished.

There was a gurgle and an horrific jerk from Karabazra's body, and something wet freckled finely across Vesp's face. Eyes wide, she stepped back and stared at the razor in her hand. Its blade was covered in blood. She slowly and dazedly looked up at Karabazra. He thrashed on the chair, grasping at his throat and struggling to stand - making revolting gurgling noises with a look of abject horror on his face.

Had she meant to do it? Had it just... happened? Could she even have stopped herself?

Then it came to her - a wave of hard, ugly revelation: she did not care. She truly _did not_ care. This had gone too far.

Vesp glared at her master as he wildly writhed and spasmed on the wet floorboards. There was not a scrap of pity in her heart for him.

'Look what you have made me do! You bastard! You utter BASTARD! How _dare_ you talk about my father, how _dare_ you do that to Aramir? How dare you do that to Inzil? To Karbi? To any of us?! How _could_ you? What is _wrong_ with you?!

_ANSWER ME! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?'_

Kor's eyes rolled in grim fear, but she was not moved.

"All you ever did was TAKE! Gold and jewels and privilege and people, they were all just your toys! You've taken everything from me, and now you've gone too far and left me with nothing!

Well, that was your mistake, _Kor. _ You can not touch me now! I am not afraid of you. Look at you now! What has all of this brought you?! You are going to die, you little bastard! _I_ have taken everything from _you_! And it is a_ll_ your own fault!"

There was the tumbling of feet from the corridor. She had not realised she had been shouting so loudly. Two figures burst inside the room as she stepped back to the fireplace.

With a plaintive cry of 'Father!', Tarik ran to Karabazra and clapped a hand over his neck, trying in vain to stem the torrent of blood spraying from the thin, deep slash across his throat. Isenna stood open mouthed in shock by the door. Karabazra's feet twitched and jerked on the floorboards as he began to slump. The blood slowed, and there was a terrible gurgling hiss uttering from his half-filled lungs.

Tarik looked about at her with horrific venom in his eyes.

'YOU! Seize her, mother!'

Isenna's hand gripped Vesp's left forearm with frightening strength, but Vesp was riding on a wave of detached fury, and she was not afraid of her any more; of anyone. She brought about the razor and slashed hard across Isenna's arm, feeling the blade click on bone as the muscle was cut cleanly in half. Isenna howled, and Tarik rose, releasing his father's throat with a roar of rage and starting towards Vesp.

Hardly thinking, she took the oil lamp from the mantlepiece and threw it straight into his face, where it burst in a flare of guttering wet fire that enveloped him and lit the furniture. With a strength she did not know she had, Vesp rammed into Isenna and knocked her onto the floor, then ran out of the doors and slammed them behind her. Not enough... not enough...

There. There was a cold satisfaction in it. Moving about, she set her shoulder against the stone likeness of Ar-Pharazôn the Golden, and pushed it off its pedestal, where it fell in front of the door and broke in half.

There were howls and screams from inside as her masters burned. Her heart pounded, but there were no guards. She could hear footsteps running hither and thither in the halls.

Fear descended. Moments ago, she might almost have been glad to run into Karabazra's guards. Riding on the wings of shock and vengeance, she would simply have cut her own throat, and that would have been an end to it. But now... there was a chance; a sniff of hope. She was standing in the most dangerous place she could think of, and yet she had not yet been seen and was not yet caught. She had something to lose again.

The terror of it almost paralysed her, but with sheer force of will, she managed to force her sluggish mind to work...

_Yes, yes, a cowl. Isenna's cowl..._

She hurried across the way and burst through the doorway to Isenna's clothes-room. She had fetched this cowl a thousand times when her mistress was preparing to go to the Temple, so she found it in bare moments and wrenched it from its hook. Then, grabbing a pouch of jewellery from the vanity, she ran down the stairs, heading for the stables... still no one. A sting of vomit tickled at her throat as she ran.

'Aargh!'

Her heart jumped to her mouth. She had run about the corner and knocked someone off their feet. Staggering, she looked down to see a stunned-looking Inzil, as Siraha crouched to help her up. The look of anger she had mustered froze as she saw Vesp's face and the blood on her hands.

'What...? What have you done?'

Gulping air, Vesp struggled to speak.

'I've... I've done it. I've broken our promise. He's dead. They all are...'

Stunned silence reigned, though they could hear a distant clash and roar of flame. They did not look around. Inzil's mouth flapped.

'You've killed Kor?'

Vesp nodded. Inzil's eye grew in panic, and a patch of dampness spread on her pale grey dress.

'MURDERER! MURDER! SHE'S HERE! SHE'S -'

Siraha's hand had clapped across her mouth, stifling her yell in urgent terror. Siraha was choking in panic, her eyes glassy with tears.

'Shut up shut up SHUT UP Inzil!' she sobbed in terror. 'You remember what they do! We have to go, we have to _GO_!'

Vesp had never seen her so afraid. Even through the haze of shock, and despite all the vicious bullying the girls had inflicted on her, she felt her heart grabbed by pity and grief. In an odd way, Siraha and Inzil had become part of her life, and though she had hated it, she knew in her heart that she did not hate _them - _their viciousness had been born of fear and oppression; not hatred. In this moment, she forgave them for everything.

"I'm sorry!" she sobbed. "Just go: get out! Don't let them catch you!"

With that, she ran: leaping over Inzil's stunned form and crashing through the door to the stables. She felt a pang as the smell of hay and warm golden sunlight reminded her for a moment of Aramir, but it was barely even a flicker of thought. Quickly, she chose the showiest saddle and tack she could and hauled it off its stand. Her strength seemed to have doubled itself, for it felt feather light as she ran to Nûlû's stall and threw it over him. He tossed his head and shuffled his feet, but stood firm, though the other horses were whinnying and kicking in fright. A momentary swell of love for the sturdy old horse swept through her heart as she quickly fitted the bridle and tightened the straps. Her hands were shaking so much and were so tacky with blood she almost could not bind the buckles, but she had one more task to attend to.

With quivering hands, she tugged at the neck of the jewellery bag and emptied it onto the ground, then crouched and began scrabbling through the fallen necklaces and rings until she found the one she needed: the symbol of Melkor: the craven God whom her Master and some of his kind still worshipped.

'Stop! You theah!'

She yelped in fright and turned. One of Kor's Haradrim guards was standing in the stall door and pointing at her, his eyes wide with anger and menace. He was immense and strong, and armed. There was no way past him. But his face quickly flickered to shock and fear as Nûlû leapt forward with an un-horselike grunt, kicking out with both forefeet and knocking the man back and to the ground outside the stall. Without a noise, Nûlû followed him out, then he reared on his hindlegs and fell onto the man's chest twice with his front hooves, crushing him dead even before he could scream. Vesp stared at Nûlû in shock, but he simply shook his long black mane and snorted as though nothing had happened. He looked at her, almost with an air of expectancy, and she snapped out of her horrified trance, grasping the symbol of Melkor from the hay and throwing Isenna's black velvet cowl over her shoulders before donning it. Now, she looked like a Novice of the Temple, and the blood on her hands and face, and her horse's hooves would not draw suspicion.

She approached Nûlû tentatively, almost fearing that he would attack her, but he simply waited steadily and patiently while she mounted and broke into an obedient trot out through the stable door and into the streets beyond. Heads turned, but she glared at them until they looked away. She looked back over her shoulder. Smoke rose above the rooftops on the far side of the building, and she thought she saw Inzil and Siraha pushing their way hand in hand through the crowd that had gathered to watch. She broke into a canter. There would be a hunt and a cry soon enough, but for now she was ahead of it. Terror crawled all over her skin like biting ants, but Nûlû's strong muscles pumped away tirelessly underneath her, and guards and peasants hurried out of their way as they saw the blood and the Holy sign about her neck.

And then, after many winding streets and broad avenues, she was out of the gates and away into the lands beyond.

She was free.


	10. Chapter 10 - Pursuit

If there was one thing keeping her alive, it was Nûlû. Vesp had spent all of the time she could remember cooped into that damned old house, and she did not know the wild. But Nûlû did. At least a dozen times she had known, by a tensing of his muscles or a twitch of his ears, that trouble was ahead, and every time she had trusted him. She could not rely on any disguise now. She knew that the hunters from the Temple and the Guild were looking for her, and would know her by any guise, including her horse. There was no sense in following roads, or in bedding down in inns. She had to cross wilds, and double back - lay traps, change direction on the faintest whim. She did not know where she was going, except that it was away from Umbar.

She was not stupid, though. She knew that the easy road, or the way that some animal instinct told her to take, was no good. If she followed the paths that looked simple or easy or lush and green, she would walk right into an ambush, and then she would beg for death long before the end. If that meant crossing trackless dessert, then so be it. Better to perish from the heat then to be flayed, crucified and burnt as the rest must have been.

No, she would not think about that. She had hated all of the other slaves, once, but now it seemed that the hatred had not come from her, but from Kor's games. They were no worse than she was, and in fact none of them had doomed her to such a hideous end as she had them. She could only hope that Siraha and Inzil had had the sense not to try to hide but to run and keep running. They were the only ones who might have been warned in time, but she knew that Inzil's fear was their greatest danger, and that it would make her vainly hope for mercy where there would be none. Vesp knew better though, and so did Siraha. The brutal death given to surviving slaves was not intended to punish the guilty or even to avenge a dead master, but to protect those other Lords, merchants and Brotheliers who kept slaves. If slaves knew they could kill their masters with no more consequence than their own death, then Umbar would have fallen long ago.

Nûlû tossed his head and flared his nostrils. Vesp paused upon the path and listened hard. Nothing. No alarm calls of birds or wooden sliding of arrows being drawn. She could not turn back upon this path. She had seen that there were caravaners coming along behind her. The brush would have to suffice. She turned Nûlû aside into it, though he paused before the nearest thorn-bushes and it took a squeeze of her ankles before he could be persuaded to go on, but on he went all the same, high-stepping over the brush nearest the road so as not to leave as much of a trail. She had not often ridden before, or at least, she had hated every moment of her lessons, as she had sat side-saddle on whipped horses, and judged on the 'firmness' of her commands, so that the horses had often come away with bleeding chops. It had come as a surprise to her then, that Nûlû, whose mouth had long ago become calloused and insensitive to the bit seemed to be responding more to her thought than to her commands. Pulling at the reins was almost a meaningless ritual, as if he was going to turn at her command, he would have already started it before she tugged. Whether it was by some subtle shifting of her weight, or a twist of muscle, he always seemed to know where she wanted to go. After a few days she had taken off his bridle and buried it - keeping only a soft rope to help her hold on - and let him read her thoughts, however he did it.

That day's trekking was long and tiring, always stopping to listen, and changing paths a dozen times. The jungle was not dense or tall, but it was hot, and full of vines and biting insects. In the end it had given way to the mounting grassy dunes, over which she could hear the sea. When it became too dark to see, she stopped, and dropped stiffly from the saddle, loosening Nûlû's tack by feel and finding a stream to lead him to by sound. She slept fitfully, wrapped in Isenna's torn cowl. Hunger seemed to grind at her belly, and brought her strange dreams – sometimes of horror and pursuit, and sometimes of things she did not know, voices spoken in tongues she did not understand – half-seen faces obscured through thick grey mists. Words spun and twisted in her mind, their sounds making the music of a stream, but out of the babel came two words. Quiet, soundless even, but sharp and clear as ice-water falling on her neck:

_Wake up_

Her eyes opened. It was not yet light, but a cold blueish smear in the sky spoke of approaching dawn. Her heart was beating fast, though there was scarce a sound but the sigh of wind and the distant trickling of the brook. She looked to Nulu. His great black silhouette was still and his head hung low: sleeping, perhaps.

Never mind that... something was telling her to beware. Lifting herself carefully from the ground, she slunk over to Nulu and tightened his belly band, making him wake with a small jump but no sound. Huffing, he raised his head and twisted his ears about. He could sense something she could not. As he laid his ears back upon his head she half-leapt up into the saddle just as the bushes about her exploded. Shouts and cries rang out, and swarthy men burst from the undergrowth, swinging bolas and raising spears. A crossbow quarrel hissed past her head as Nulu leapt for an opening in the dunes. Vesp's heart froze: two men had just pulled a thin, glinting cord taut across the opening. With a cry she lunged forwards and clapped a hand over his left eye, making him lean right and toss his head as he ran. But he was no longer running at the cord, and instead one of the men who had pulled it taut was hammered into the ground beneath his frenzied hooves.

Wind whistled past her ears as Nulu ran, and tumbling bolas thudded into the ground near his feet, failing to catch his legs and trip him. On and on he ran, longer and faster, until there was no sound from behind nor sight of pursuit. As he ran, the sun rose over the forest, and the white foam glowed in the surf to her left. Her heart did not slow, but gradually, the fear seemed to drain away, to be replaced by joy. She was alive! And, somehow... every time she and Nulu fled danger at the gallop, she felt a deep and powerful bond with the steaming black horse, as though he was more than just a beast of burden: more even than a friend. As if she knew him and had always known him, and that he knew her. Not the slave, nor the wild runaway, but what she was underneath, whatever that might be.

But there was something wrong. After the gallop, they had cantered, and after that they had trotted, but now he was flagging. It had been a mighty run, but he was a fit horse and he would not normally tire so soon. He coughed a great racking cough, and blood spattered on the rocks by the way.

'No!'

Vesp stopped him and leapt down, not wanting to believe what she had just seen. Frantically, she ran her hands over him until she found it: a nasty, hard sharp thorn: a black crossbow quarrel buried behind his right foreleg between two ribs. She did not dare touch it... she had never been taught to mend horses' injuries: indeed if a horse became lame then Kor would simply order it staked or speared and sent to the cooks. She knew, though – or guessed, at least, that to pull it out would only make things worse.

Nulu's breath rasped, and Vesp's eyes rimmed with hopeless tears.

'No! No! Not you as well! They can't have you! They can't!'

He hung his great head and coughed again. More blood freckled the ground by Vesp's feet.

'I'm so sorry...'

She hugged his sweaty neck, taking care not to press on his throat, but she could feel the shivers running through his muscles. Wiping her face and sniffing, she looked about desolately, hearing a stream nearby. She led him to it and cried out as he shakingly lowered himself to drink, but instead stumbled and splashed into the shallows. Vesp rushed in after him and wrapped her arms about his great neck, where she sobbed and moaned uncontrollably. It was not fair. It was not FAIR! Why him? Why did everything she loved have to die!? Was that the price of freedom?

And as the old horse finally lowered his great head, she knew it was true. He _had_ known her before.


	11. Chapter 11 - Fifteen years ago

The boom and crash of the tide against stony cliffs rolled in like a sea mist; the harsh-edged sounds became smooth and sibilant with distance, softening on the sunned grass and hushing through the gnarled branches of golden elder trees.

A flash of white skimmed along the wavetops down by the rocky shore. Fork-tailed and delicate, it flicked its wings, catching the sunlight and seeming to sparkle amongst the rolling blue waves. A pair of soft, stormy grey eyes watched the little tern as it fluttered up to its nest upon the stack, and then was lost as the carriage rolled on.

The eyes turned down instead, to watch the rutted, stony road gently rumble by. A line of pale standing stones stood mantled in a thousand years of lichen and moss, keeping silent vigil over the sea.

The face in which the eyes were set was young, pale and exquisitely delicate; a white marble carving given life. A smooth arc of feathery black hair as dark as a raven's thoughts fluttered and blew across the child's face as she rested her chin on her folded arms and watched the landscape pass sleepily by. She was clothed in a simple black dress of fine material, and around her neck hung a silver pendant of elegant design. It depicted the form of a leafless tree with seven bright stars set in an arc above, and it dangled and clacked against the sill of the carriage door as it swayed.

The child chewed her lip for a moment with a sleepy frown, and then sat back in her seat with a heavy sigh.

"_Ada, idhenna im! Garo ammen haeron i heltha lend?"_

"Not far now, Aewen." Replied the man sitting opposite her, after glancing out of the window. "Practice your Common, they do not speak Sindarin in the provinces."

"I bored," the girl uttered rebelliously.

"I _am_ bored, you mean," replied the man, looking up from the roll of parchment he had been reading and grinning at his daughter. "Repeat – I am bored"

"I – am – bored," she echoed. "And hungry"

"Well, moaning will do you no good, and hungry will be remedied soon," interjected an equally fair-faced woman, who could only have been the girl's mother. "As for bored, you can read these tales of lore with me," she offered, with a brief smile. Without waiting for a reply, she shifted closer to her daughter and wrapped an arm about her, unbinding a thin, leather-bound book from its case and opening it primly.

Although she did not smile, the child's face became relaxed and content. A warm fluttering sensation slowly filled her stomach and her scalp tingled as her mother's voice turned like magic the loops, dots and curls of the tengwar on the page into images of great heroes riding white horses, fighting unspeakable evils, reigning victorious or going beyond, far away over the sea, to where the sun sleeps and the dead sit in peace.

Her finger traced the lines on the page and she made the sounds they spoke, too slowly to keep up with her mother, unless she slowed her pace to let Aewen read along. A giddiness seemed to hold her still in her seat; a comforting sway of balance, as though the world around her were rocking like a cradle, slowly and gently, with her head tingling and still in the centre. It did not make her feel sick, but loved and warm, and she felt safer still when her father came and sat upon her other side, closing them both in his arm and making with his body a nest with her in the middle. He began to read the parts of the heroes and villains in the tales, raising his voice to clear nobility or lowering it to a cruel hiss as each character spoke his piece, whilst her mother carried the tale between.

The enclosing warmth and comforting, familiar smell of her parents lulled her into the sense of a waking dream, and her hunger and all thoughts of complaint were forgotten. It seemed all too soon that the grass and stone outside became the timber-and-daub houses of a town upon the coast, and a grey sea mist began to roll in. Aewen felt a pang of regret as her parents' manners changed and they broke apart, closing the book and setting it away. As they moved away and began to bustle about the carriage and correct their appearance, ready to meet the town's dignitaries, the cold crept in at her sides, seeming the more bitter in those places where their bodies had warmed her.

Aewen shuffled across in her seat to look out of the carriage window and see the town. The mist had closed in; a bright grey shroud that wrapped a cool salve around the sunned wood and stone. Looming out of the fog came the old walls and sea-defences, solemn and dignified spectres of a past age, whose proud bearing outstripped the newer dwellings and storehouses, but did not belittle them.

The carriage rumbled to a stop before a handsome stone hall, with a slim tower keeping watch out to sea set in its midst, casting a silhouette before the muted flare of the sun. Aewen hopped out of the carriage as soon as the door was opened, putting a hand down on the step to help her balance, and ran in a quick circle about it, enjoying the cool breeze and the shrouded sky.

"Aewen, stay close. We are going to meet the Captain of the garrison here, so you must be good and stay quiet."

The girl frowned and tugged on her mother's hand to make her look down.

"Nana, can't I look at the town? The last Captain was boring."

"No, Aewen. You're coming with us. You'd get lost."

Pouting, the girl dropped her mother's hand and looked to her father hopefully.

"It would be better if we didn't take her, Nimwen. There is one matter at least I need to discuss with the Captain that she should not hear of. Come, Tildur can watch her until we are done, and then we can eat together later."

The girl's mother frowned briefly, and looked at her daughter sternly, a slight glint of her eye observing the practised look of hopeful innocence that had hastily replaced Aewen's pout.  
"Well, alright… Tildur, would you?" she asked of one of the guards who had been riding closest the carriage. "Don't let her get out of your sight. And don't let her order you," she added with a brief smile.

The guard nodded, and began to dismount. Without waiting another second, Aewen turned and ran down the cobbled street towards the sea, her arms spread wide, and her tongue sticking out of her mouth to catch the cool mist. A muffled curse; a sigh; a brief laugh and the pounding of heavy feet followed her, but she paid them no heed. She did not stop running until she came to the toothed wall that looked out over the docks below, ranked with a dozen heavy crossbows that were tarred against the weather, hanging silent and still from their pedestals.

She paused for a moment, listening to the keening and twittering of invisible gulls and the soft tinkle of the boats as they ducked and bobbed in the little swell of the waves. Running her hand along the smooth stones of the wall, she skipped along it for more than a hundred paces until it met with the grass and pebble of a promontory that jutted out over a shingle beach like the prow of a ship.

Aewen was not sure when it happened, but from one moment to the next, something felt wrong; alert. The mist ceased to be cool and balmy, and became chilling and wet. She frowned and stood on her tip-toes, feeling that something was amiss, and looked out over the waves, though she could barely see half a dozen horse-lengths ahead. The mist swirled and danced, making shadows on her mind; spiralling dragons and flocks of birds, running horses through the fog, and so quiet. Somewhere the gentle tolling of a bell cut harmony with the gulls, and a dockhand called out. Aewen stared again into the sea mist, willing it into different forms; an ox, charging; a great eagle; a great black-sailed ship…

Her mouth dropped open, aghast. The ship was real! A great moving shadow skimmed silently through the waves, then landed with a crunch against the shingle beach. Its trimmed, fan-like sails were black as the night, and two ranks of oars like the legs of a centipede were raised high and withdrawn into the hatches without a sound. As she watched, the blurred forms of five dozen men shimmed down ropes into the surf and began to run up the beach.

"AEWEN! TOL! TOL!"

Her heart nearly stopped in shock as Tildur's voice bellowed her name. His broad form came rushing at her out of the mist and grabbed her up by the waist as if she were a doll, then ran for the town, screaming at the top of his lungs.

"CORSAIRS! CORSAIRS ON THE BEACH! ARM YOURSELVES! THE CORSAIRS OF UMBAR ARE HERE!"

Moments later, a hail of blind arrows came hissing out of the mist, clattering on the stones or thudding into the grass around him, as though the sky were raining barbs.

The shock that ran through Aewen had held her paralysed until now. The serene calm had been ripped away so unexpectedly that she could barely breathe, but when she found her voice she began to bawl and scream like an infant, her face a pale mask of tragedy as she clung her arms around her guardian's neck.

His pounding feet carried her into the town proper, where hers was not the only voice screaming. A dozen guards had rallied, and looked urgent askance at Tildur, whilst the townspeople screamed and pelted back and forth around them.

"From the east beach! Two ships and more a hundred men! Where is my Lord; where is Brandir?"

"In the town hall, sir! Guards! Man the gates!" bellowed the Sergeant of the group, rushing to a bell and ringing it with all his vigour.

Tildur ran on, grunting his effort, and holding Aewen so tightly it was a struggle for her to find breath. Before her mind had caught up, though, she was being set down, and her father was there, and her mother, looking deathly pale, tensed and shivering like a racing hound.

"Nimwen, take her to the stables and go! Ride! Don't turn back; just ride! Tildur, Captain…"

The rest of Brandir's orders were lost as a new pair of hands grabbed her up, and she was pressed with a furious fear against her mother's breast as she began to run, as her father had said, toward the stables. Before they had left the cobbled square, the hail of arrows began again, and there were yells of agony and gasps of shock as men, women and children fell dead or wounded, black-fletched arrows projecting from their bodies.

"AADAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Aewen's voice made a gut-wrenching wail as she saw her father fall, an arrow striking the place between his shoulder and his chest. She clawed at her mother's shoulder, trying to climb over and run back to the square, but her grip was like iron, holding their bodies pressed painfully tight together, and Aewen could not move.

She barely noticed the warm fug of horses and hay, as startled whinnies filled the air, and it was not until she was thrown across the saddle of a tall, strong black horse that she knew where she was. Before the thought had completed itself, they were away. Her mother's sobs and the rasping of the great beast's breath became one as they galloped out of the stables and through the narrow streets, the sounds of battle fading behind. The saddle beneath Aewen's dress seemed to slip and slide away from her, and it took her a moment to gain her balance.

Everything came to her with difficulty, for control of her body was not hers; her mind was stunned, her eyes streaming, her breath fast and deep, gulping in too much air so that she was made dizzy, and a hand held her clamped tightly in place. She had never known such panic.

In a half-daze she made out the shapes of a hundred women and children as their horse passed them by, running towards the hills, and the acres of wilderness beyond. If they were making any noise, she could not hear it, for her heart was thumping too loudly in her ears.

Her fingers wound their way into the coarse black mane and she felt the immense power of the horse beneath her with something close to exhilaration, hurtling tirelessly forwards away from a danger that seemed to be pressing on her back.

But then, just as her head began to clear, something sharp jabbed into her from behind and scraped on the bone of her shoulder blade, making her squeal out in pain. Her mother's grip loosened, and was gone, leaving a vast cold gulf at Aewen's back that nothing in the world could now fill.

Struck dumb, she slipped sideways from the horse's sweaty neck and fell, gripping onto the flailing reins and mane. Her heels bashed against the grass below, and she fell onto her back beside the horse as it snorted to a stop, its head low, trying to tug the reins out of her hand.

No bodily pain could match the panic inside her now, as she tugged herself to her feet and ran back to the broken bundle of black silk and white skin that lay sadly on the hillside. If only she could shake her hard enough, she would wake up and none of this would have happened. She had to scream and scream and shake her, harder and harder until she woke up, and everything would be all right. Nana always came when she was upset, always….

Aewen was blind to all of her own pain, deaf to the screams and clashes from away down by the shore, ignorant of the dozen swarthy figures jogging up the hillside, bearing bows. She was closed to everything except the two gently-lidded eyes before her that refused to open, set in a pale face like a white marble carving given life, and then left without it.

She did not break away or look around; not even when rough, unsympathetic hands dragged her from her feet and tugged her away. If only she could keep shaking her… but she could not reach. Her mother's body was left further and further behind, until it was simply another black dot among many upon the lonely hillside.


	12. Chapter 12 - Dol Amroth

_**A/N:**__ Since this was written as a series of short stories to reflect significant events upon a timeline, the time jumps might seem a bit bewildering. You'll just have to take it as it is, though, since unfortunately I don't have time to link it all up as I'd like to. For reference, this is set about a year after Vesp/Aewen arriven in Rivendell_

A quiet steam rose in spirals above the side of meat on the board by the window. Brandir moved slowly across to it, withdrew a well-used knife from his belt and began cutting it up. He shivered, looking out over the brilliant sunlit streets of Whitehaven and feeling a chill. He concentrated on the cutting, paying it more attention than it needed and wishing that the boy would hurry up and bring those reports to him. He despised the emptiness that came with inaction, and though he did not desire company, some distraction would be more than welcome.

He frowned out of the window, looking up at the rising spire of Tirin Amroth as it stood proud of the city; a tall, sunlit white spear jutting into the enamelled blue sky.

In a flash of white, a little tern darted silently past the window, causing Brandir's breath to catch in his chest. He did not drop the knife; it had been too long and become too familiar over the years, but these unexpected stabs of nostalgia and guilt were not something he could ever fully become used to. It might be weeks or months between periods of melancholy, but as surely as the sun rose in the morning, they would return, and when they did, it would take the barest reminder - a gull's cry, a roll of mist, a stranger's half-glimpsed face, and he would be back upon the hillside, cradling his wife's cold body in his arms and howling curses against Iluvatar himself for his apathy. At its worst, he would wake from sleep screaming and raving, and more than once the Prince's personal physician had been sent to tend to him. His crew and servants had come to recognise these periods of melancholy - 'the rages', as they knew them - and wisely kept their distance, performing their duties down to the letter and avoiding giving him the barest cause to vent his wrath upon them. He scowled, watching the delicate flitting shape as it skimmed above the rooftops, then wheeled about and headed to the cliffs and out of sight. He stabbed the slightly bloody stack of beef to the board and breathed deeply; several long breaths, and let the hissing in his mind subside.

Somewhere a bell tolled a sonorous boom, disturbing a clatter of keening gulls from their perch on the gable across the way. In the haven below, the waves gently bobbed about two hundred ships at anchor: loading, unloading or drifting slowly out towards the deepening bay. He made a brief survey of them, counting and naming them and their captains, planning in his mind where they should be, which needed refitting. His hands were shaking. By the Valar, what was in him today? There was something in the air; he could feel it, like a weight crushing his lungs and making his breath short. If that boy didn't hurry up with the reports, he'd be cleaning privies for the next month.

A slight creak and gust of wind at his back told him that the door had opened. He spun around, clutching his walking cane and growled; "Damn you boy, don't you kno - "

The rest of his reprimand never left his lips. There in the doorway stood not the messenger-lad from the armourer's office, but a young woman, her shapely white face framed by coal-black hair, standing a little taller than his shoulder, and clad not in gown or skirts but a well-worn hunting tunic and britches of fine cloth and strange make.

The cane clattered to the floorboards and Brandir swayed upon the spot, barely managing to keep himself upright as his world spun.

"Nimwen?"

He blinked, wiping his eyes to clear the apparition from them. It could not be her. He had buried her fifteen years ago…

As the blur cleared, he stared hard. No, no… he could see, it was not her. Her brows had been a little higher arched, her eyes softer and paler…

The woman slowly shook her head in response to his question.

But these eyes… They were a deep, black-ringed grey, with finest feather-lines of shadow, spreading out from the pupil like flares from a black sun. The reflected sunlight glinted in them, mirrored and cast within like a stormy sky. He knew those eyes.

"Aewen?"

The girl breathed in sharply. She stood stiffly, her lips tight and eyes wide, the faintest trace of what might have been a snarl on her face. Nimwen had never looked at him like that.

"Aewen… is it you?"

Brandir's knuckles were white as he clutched the sill of the window, his eyes fixed on the girl half-out of the doorway, not daring to blink or look away in case she was not there when looked back.

The girl's own hands were gripping the door and frame tightly, and her feet shifted upon the old oak boards as she drew back half a step. Her face screwed up a little tighter, her eyes were now tainted with pain and fury, and in a heartbeat she was gone, her feet barely making a whisper on the ground as she turned and bolted down the stone corridor.

Brandir lurched forwards, his heart in his throat, clawing desperately for the doorway, his bandaged knee sent darts of pain up his leg and back, and creaked as he tried to run through the doorway, desperately struggling to find the words to yell out.

"AEWEN! COME BACK! SELLETH NIN! MY DAUGHTER! MY DAUGHTER!"

He ran out of the doorway and crashed heavily into two startled guardsmen, who grabbed his arms and stopped him from falling. He threw them off, his damaged body still holding more strength in it than either of the guardsmen could match. He turned his face to them in a desperate craze.

"My daughter! She ran… did you see her? Where did she go?!"

The two guards glanced at one another worriedly. On of them reached to lay a calming hand upon his arm, his lips beginning to form some conciliatory remark. Brandir had no time for such things. He rammed his way between them and continued his loping run down the corridor, bursting out onto the staircase in time to see a dark shape flit out of the lowest doorway.

"AEWEN!"

He tripped and stumbled down the stairs, falling and rolling the last few but managing to tumble upright, jarring his knee badly as he did so. He stared wildly down the corridor, where he could see the retreating shape of a girl fleeing towards the door onto the street.

"STOP HER! STOP HER DAMN YOU!"

A shocked-looking squire glanced between them for a fraction of a second, before leaping bodily at the girl and knocking her from her feet…

The air was crushed from Aewen's lungs as the man landed on top of her and grappled for her arms to hold her down. A surge of instinctive panic brought her head forward sharply and she felt it connect with his cheekbone, giving her a second's reprieve; enough time to reach to her belt and draw the long, slender elvish knife that hung there. Without thought, she stabbed blindly for the man's neck, but before the blade had moved a hand's breath through the air, an armoured foot connected hard with her fingers, sending the knife spinning away across the stone flags and causing her to yelp in pain. Rough hands dragged her to her feet and through the blur of panic she saw a fist raised to knock her senseless.

"STOP! DON'T HURT HER!"

Brandir limped heavily over to the squire and pushed him aside, looking down with wide eyes at the girl being held up by the two guards. She looked up at him now with shock, fear and anger upon her face, though after bare moments, her mouth closed and a scowl of defiance set about her delicate features.

Brandir stared, long moments spinning past them unnoticed as he took in every detail of his daughter's face like a drowning man clawing at flotsam. She simply glared; eyes that he had last seen set in the perfect porcelain face of a four-year-old girl now looked daggers at him from a face which was both achingly familiar and utterly strange to him. She was at once her mother and his daughter, and neither. Gone was the innocent, careless charm of his only child, replaced by something of sharp beauty; all of the grace and elegance of a hawk, and all of its fragility and its hostility as well. He slowly reached out a hand towards her cheek, but as it came close she recoiled sharply.

"My girl… what have they done to you? Where have you been? How …. ?"

Aewen jerked again against the guards, who tightened their grip on her arms. Her fingers throbbed painfully, and the blood in her arms was constricted by the tight grip. It hurt to look at him. She had so hoped to find her father as he always had been; young and smiling, strong, kind, loving and safe. What she saw now stung her to the core. This thing hiding behind a mask of her father's face was no man she knew. He looked battered and hard; his eyes were weary, and as they looked at her tear-rimmed she perceived only weakness, and it burned her. She wanted to smash him to pieces - this mockery of a man - tear away the face that was to the man she remembered as a lumpen statue is to a god. How dare he ask her these things?

"You know," she intoned acidly. "You _know_ where I've been. You know what they have done to me. Let- me- go!"

She struggled again as the guards sought to hold her back, and slipped slightly in surprise as they released her. She scowled again at Brandir.

"They shot her, and it went so deep that it cut me, too, and then they dragged me away and threw me on a ship and they beat me until I could not stand! The others all cried when they stopped, but I didn't! Because I knew, and I told them, whatever they do to us, it does not matter, because my father is a Captain, and he will come with his ships and he will kill them and take us home! It kept me strong, because I knew, my father loved me, and he would find a way!  
And then months went by, and no one came, but I thought - it is alright, because I had seen an arrow hit my father, so he was sick, but he would get better, and then he would come for us! And a year passed and the Kors laughed and they took the others away and made them bleed on the shrine until they were dead and I was afraid, but I stayed strong because I knew that my father would come! And then many years passed and I forgot his name, and I forgot my name and one by one the rest died or were sold to rich old men for toys but I still dreamed that one day my father would come for me! WHY!? Why didn't you come for me, Ada!? I needed you and you never came!"

Brandir stared at his daughter, like a rabbit without the will to run from the hound. Aewen was shivering with barely bottled passion, willing this puppet to say something - anything - that would make her hate him less. Silence stretched, and she could hold it in no longer. Fast as a snake's strike, her fist smashed into his jaw, turning his head sharply and causing the guards to start forward. Brandir's hand raised and Aewen flinched instinctively, but it was held with a palm towards the guards, stopping them where they stood. "Do nothing, no matter what! That is an order."

He stared at his daughter still, whose teeth were bared and fists clenched. With a howl of rage she hit him again, as hard as she could, causing him to stagger backward a step. The guards grimaced, restraining themselves like hounds at the collar.

Chest heaving, Aewen screamed at her father: "Do something! Why won't you _DO_ something!?"

Another blow, another, and Brandir merely staggered backwards, his face bloodied, and his head beginning to sag. He signalled again for the guards to do nothing, and they ground the teeth and cursed, leaning forward as though straining against bonds. Aewen howled her frustration and swung again, this time catching him hard on the cheekbone and sending him crashing to the ground.

Like a cat onto fallen prey, she leaped onto him and began beating him repeatedly with her fists and screaming. Fifteen years of wild fury burned in her muscles, until blood flecked her face and her arms were weak from effort. Her screams dissolved into sobs and the blows became weaker and more poorly aimed, and through the mist of anger she became aware that he was speaking; one phrase, over and over, choked and silenced as each blow landed. She raised a bloody fist, holding it quaking by her head, and listened, choking the harsh breath from between her clenched teeth to hear….

"_Díheno nin, díheno nin… forgive me…. I am sorry_."

The whispered phrase cut through Aewen's mind like an arrowhead, and her fist became limp. Looking down into Brandir's bloodshot, puffy eyes, for a fleeting moment she saw her father, and a sickness rose in her as she saw what she had done. With a sob she stood and backed away, nearly tripping on his weakly moving arm. She gripped at her hair with both hands, and backed into something. She spun about, finding herself a hand's breadth away from one of her father's guards, his face a mask of stifled fury. She hastily stepped back, feeling the bile rise as his hatred compounded her guilt. She stifled a whimper, and with stumbling inelegance, she ran out of the open doorway into the sunlight beyond.

Upon the hard flagstones of the floor, a single tear cut a clean path across Brandir's bloodied cheek, and he smiled.


	13. Chapter 13 - Home again

The sun had long gone down. A late frost clipped the air and made Aewen's face and knuckles sting with the cold, but she had endured worse. What pressed upon her mind and drove her galloping on through the night was a different kind of pain – one that she had never been well equipped to deal with.

The horse was tired... she could feel his spirit flagging and knew that if he was not allowed to rest he would become lame and weak. With a half-choked call, she leaned back in the saddle and eased him to a shuddering and grateful halt. Sliding from the saddle, she stumbled and fell, but staggered again to her feet, cursing the stiffness of her thighs. She was close now. She had not ridden this path in what seemed a lifetime, and ghosts whispered at her with every half-remembered standing stone, each brook and ford along the way. Nevertheless, she knew that she was drawing close to the village and she was eager to get there. Grabbing at the reins, she began to stride stiffly forwards, cursing, but the horse was heavy in her hand, and his feeble whickering protests made her look back. Moonlight glinted from the sweat in his long black mane and there was froth at his lip. His eyes rolled; he was broken. She paused, wondering how she would get him to move, but the night's chill seemed to catch at her back, bringing with it a clarity of purpose and relief from the nagging mire of mixed intentions that led her for so long. She didn't need the horse. All she would achieve by dragging him on would be to kill him, and she had done enough damage already. Reaching under the saddle, she unbuckled his tack, and took the bit from his mouth. She grabebd up handfuls of dry grass from the verge and brushed him down, drying him off, leaving only the saddlecloth, and packing it with more grass that it might keep out the cold. Hauling the tack and saddle into the hedge, she opened the pannier and kicked it over, allowing half a dozen apples to roll out onto the road for the horse, then patted him briefly on the neck before breaking into a jog.

The road was rough and the paving broken, so in the blue moonlight it was difficult to keep her footing and twice she turned her ankle upon a stone, so that she had to lope along lopsided. The way was longer than she thought, and she was beginning to doubt her bearings when the familiar shape of the old bell-tower loomed up ahead against the night sky. It seemed smaller now than it had done, but then, she had grown much since she had last passed by.

Aewen came to a limping stop against the door, her breath rasping at her dry throat, and almost fell as it opened inwards. Arms caught her and for a moment a panic seized her muscles – her hands darted for her knife – but then a soothing, grandmotherly voice crooned to her as she was pulled back to her feet.

"Away now dear, I'll not hurt you."

Concerned eyes surveyed her from a wrinkled face as she staggered back to her feet.

"By the winds... you look half dead. Are you a messenger? Where's your 'orse?" asked the old matron, frowning and chewing at her lip in consternation.

Aewen stood up a little straighter. She was not here to be nursed.

"Brandir! Is he here? I must find... Where is he?" she demanded, fighting to keep the quavering note from her voice.

She pushed past the matron and passed through the candlelit archway into the town hall's serried ranks of beds and stretchers. She paced urgently along the rows of wounded men, the smells of cauter oil and blood tightening the back of her throat. She had only to glance at each face to know it was not him. A rising tide of panic threatened to drown her. He had to be here... he could not have died. Not after she had forgiven him. It was not fair! He had to be here!

A hand grasped about her wrist and she gasped, pulled up short from her thoughts. She looked down at the hand with a furious scowl and its owner released her, giving her a wistful smile.

"Forgive me, my lady, but are you Aewen?"

The man's voice was weak, but there was colour enough in his face.

Aewen rubbed her wrist, glowering at him. He had not hurt her, but she did not like to be touched. She said nothing.

The man smiled a little dazedly.

"I thought so. The Captain said I would know when I saw you."

"Brandir!" choked Aewen. She had meant to ask the man if he knew her father; if he knew what had become of him, but somehow the words did not seem to come.

"He lives, my lady, for now. He survived the wrecking of the Sea Spear with little hurt. Indeed, he carried me from the wreckage and saw that I was safe here. But he has gone. He went to join those forces that move up the Great River to fight the enemy at Pelennor."

Aewen's heart lurched from relief to dread, and no words found their way to her lips.

"Before he went, he bade me give you this message, and swear to keep you here, safe."

Reaching to his bedside table, the man passed her a sealed envelope, wincing as he strained his wounds in the act. Aewen snatched it from him and tore it open with shaking hands. Her eyes drank in the hastily written note and beaded with tears. 

_Aewen. Do not follow me, meleth nin. I go now to do what I should have done fifteen years ago. We have won victories against the filth of Umbar, but it is not enough. We sail to break the enemy utterly, and pay them properly for your mother's death and for their crimes against you. I do not have the words to ever tell of the guilt that has consumed me since I lost you both. You were ever the most precious thing I had, and had I known that you yet lived, I would never have stopped in my pursuit of you. I would have walked into Umbar alone, though the entire might of the enemy stood before me, but I was deceived._

After you were taken from me, I went to the Prince himself to beg ships to sail upon Umbar. He pitied me, but he would not hear of it. I told him then that I would go alone, with his leave or nay, but before I could leave, his runners brought news from our spies in Umbar that you and the other children had been slain upon the altar in the heathen temples of that wicked place. I know now that it was a deception meant to break our spirit or force our hand to hasty response, but on that day I swore I would live only for vengeance, and Prince Imrahil gave me a ship that I might patrol our coasts and destroy the corsairs as they sought more victims. Such I have done for fifteen years without joy or mercy, but now that I have seen your living face, I know only that I cannot ask for your forgiveness without first making you safe, and whilst Gondor is threatened, you can never be safe.

And so I go, to my doom, perhaps. And perhaps I go to Gondor's doom as well, but now I dare to hope that we will prevail. I ride with the Swan Knights with joy in my heart, knowing now that if by my life or death I can make you safe, I shall give it gladly.

I shall see you again, my love, either under the living sky, or as I stand by your mother many years hence, to greet you again as my daughter; the dearest thing that can be.

Your father,  
Brandir Awarthalion (Captain)

Aewen was not aware of falling to the ground, but she must have done, for as she sobbed, a hand reached down for her shoulder and remained there as she shook and bawled. So close... she had come so close but she had let her anger ruin everything again. It was her fault this time.

After a time, she looked up. The man was smiling warmly.

"Do not fear for him, my lady. I thought that I had known your father for a long time, and I would have said that he was a hard and grim man, yet in these past weeks he is changed. I had never seen him smile or jest before you came to him in Dol Amroth, but since then, we, his crew, have not known him. He has not lost his shrewdness or command, but joy is in his heart and it shields him from harm. Even as the shadow of the east began to eat up the stars over the great sea he was not dismayed, nor when news came of the sacking of Pelargir, and he gave hope to the crew. If any man lives to see the new dawn, it will be your father."

Aewen's heart fluttered like a feather in the breeze, and she did not wipe away the tears on her face. After a time, she looked up, sniffing, at the man whose hand still lay solid and warm upon her shoulder.

"Who are you?"

"I am Elpharion, and I was First Mariner under your father's command. I would be still, could I stand, but I fear that this war will be over ere I can hold a blade again."

Silence hung for a few long moments as the candles and lamps flickered around them.

"Did... you know him? What was he like? Did he... ever talk about me?"

Elpharion's smile warmed. Though he could see in her eyes and in her body that she had endured many hardships, and comfortably carried a short elven sword of exquisite balance and beauty, he could not help but hear a note in her voice as of a child, nervously hoping for approval she was not sure of receiving.

"For many years he would speak of nothing except that which was needed to captain the ship, and woe unto he who asked of ought else. But we knew, my lady, that he was not a cruel man. His wrath was terrible when we would fight with the Corsairs, but he would ever see that the slaves we freed were treated with the greatest compassion. We could see his grief, though it was hidden, but we knew better than to come to know him.

But these past two moons, had he not worn the same face, I would have thought him another man. He came aboard, bruised and beaten but smiling as I had never seen him. Before he left me here he bade me wait for you, saying that his daughter would follow, looking for him, and that I should keep her safe and protect her with my life. She would find me here, he said, for it is the cove she had most loved as a child, and that I would know her at once, for she would be the fairest sight that I had ever seen. He spoke truly, my lady."

Aewen looked at him levelly. She caught the sharp retort before it reached her tongue and looked again at Elpharion. She was tired, angry and afraid... it felt as though she had been tired and afraid and alone for all of her life, and she was heartily sick of it. Old Merren and Mara had saved her life and given her food, and she had left them to their fate with the orcs. That old man on the Greenway had come to help her and she had stabbed him through the arm; Sadronaraw had led her to Imladris, and there Eleri had helped her to calm her fear and be of use, and she had never breathed a word of thanks to either of them. She sniffed and looked away.

She was still terrified that her father might die, and that the enemy might prevail, but in this moment, she was safe. Elpharion spoke warm words when she needed to hear them. He reminded her of Aramir, the stable boy she had... He had the same quiet brightness about him. The silences did not need filling in his presence. And he had cared so dearly for the horses, been so gentle...

She shuddered.

No, that was stupid. Her old master was dead and they were in Gondor now, not Umbar. Perhaps it was time to stop running. 


End file.
